


OFF-Script

by Vox (Akumeoi)



Category: OFF (Game)
Genre: "Bad" Batter, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angel!Batter, Illustrations, M/M, Occasional french, disfigured!Zacharie, now with
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-21 10:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 23,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6047607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akumeoi/pseuds/Vox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inside the confines of a video game, the Batter is a young, dutiful Angel, and Zacharie a thrifty, scheming Merchant. But there is the script, and then there is what happens when the game is turned off. [On hiatus, but not forgotten!]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Scripted Encounter

**The Script**  
[A/N: scroll down for start of the actual fic]

Zone 0: The School.  
A. Enter Zone 0. Meet Japhet.  
I. First scripted encounter  
The Batter makes contact with Zacharie. The Batter sees Zacharie as a curiosity. Zacharie sees the Batter as a threat.  
B. Scripted fight. Tutorial-level encounter with Burnt (in the form of a professor).  
Zone 1: The Residential District  
II. Second scripted encounter  
The second building in Zone 1 is Zacharie’s apartment building.  
Establishment of Zacharie as the Merchant.  
Acquisition of the first quest: reach the top of the apartment building.  
C. Reach the top of the apartment building. Miniboss: Valzong-Burnt. Acquire the add-on Alpha.  
c. Optional: Return to Zacharie for extra supplies before exiting the tower. Note: if Japhet/Yigol is present when the Batter visits Zacharie, a bonus fight will trigger between the Batter and the Judge/Pablo.  
D. Complete Zone 1. Final boss: Dedan.  
d. Optional: If the Player has difficulty with this fight, they may return to Zacharie to acquire the David Tunic and the Masahi Bat.  
dd. Known glitch: Occasionally during the Porter Spectre miniboss, one of the small ghost buds will be thrown out of the miniboss arena and disappear. The fight is still winnable, but your kill count will be thrown off.  
Zone 2: The Shopping District  
E. Enter Zone 2.  
III. Third scripted encounter  
Meet Zacharie at his job.  
F. Final boss: Lamech  
f. Optional: If the Player has difficulty with this fight, they may return to Zacharie to acquire the Min-Woo Tunic and the Emmanuel Bat.  
ff. Known glitch: If the Batter dies during this fight, the Merchant can be accidentally transported into the boss arena upon revival. In order to get rid of him you must buy something from him. This object will not appear in your inventory but can be used throughout the rest of the game.  
Zone 3: The Pleasure District  
G. Enter Zone 3.  
IV. Fourth scripted encounter  
H. Final boss: Enoch  
Zone 4: The Factory District  
I. Enter Zone 4.  
J. Find Hugo.  
K. Miniboss: Hugo.  
L. Final boss: Vader Eloha

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**First Scripted Encounter**

Zacharie was sitting at the back of the classroom, minding his own business, when a Presence walked in. It wasn’t unusual for ghosts or Burnt to put in an appearance in this busy, busy city, but this feeling was something else entirely. Zacharie looked up. 

There, at the front of the room, apparently having just walked in, was a man. At least, Zacharie presumed he was a man. He was well-built, with broad, muscular shoulders and arms and a lean, powerful figure. For some strange reason, he was wearing a crisp, clean white baseball uniform in the middle of a post-graduate economics class. But all those things were details. The man had four eyes. And four white wings, between which was strapped across his back a fine wooden baseball bat. 

And he was terrifying. The closer he got, the stronger the sense of dread in Zacharie’s stomach, as if a dark shadow were rolling in waves across the room. Frozen, Zacharie could only stare at his back and hope that this creature wasn’t hostile. 

A thought flitted across Zacharie’s mind. 

_I wish I were home with my cats._

It was a Friday, the teacher of this class was a Burnt, and Pablo had even told him to stay home, but for some stupid reason Zacharie had decided to go anyway. Getting his MBA was so not worth this. This looked like trouble. This looked like something Zacharie was going to regret even knowing about.

As if sensing Zacharie’s petrified gaze upon him, the man in the baseball uniform turned and made eye contact. Zacharie found himself looking into the calm gaze of four red eyes. The man winked one eye – the bottom left one. It was an alien gesture, and Zacharie didn’t know what to make of it. But as the man turned back around again, the oppressive waves Zacharie had initially felt began to roll back until the air around him was clear again, and he was able to breathe.

The man was still there. He still had a baseball bat and four wings. The lack of a sense of his presence was a jarring emptiness, as if the room were a cave below the waterline, just waiting for the tide to come back in. Zacharie didn’t know which was worse. 

Just then, the professor walked in, which might have made the situation lighter had the woman not been a Burnt, black neck and face leaving swirls of coal dust behind her, black eyes shining like obsidian in a twisted, monstrous face. Zacharie had long ago accepted that nobody else could actually see the true faces of the Burnt, but still. It was obvious what the professor was as soon as she opened her mouth. 

“I heard some of you have not been doing the readings,” she began, in the shrieking, banshee-like voice that was typical of the Burnt. “This is a graduate school, people, not a babysitting service. I shouldn’t have to remind you to do them. Do you think your other classes are more important than this? Do you think I won’t notice when you write your papers how stupid you all sound? Do you really think…”

As she continued, Zacharie rolled his eyes and tried to tune her out by looking back at the man in the baseball uniform in the first row. The man was watching the Burnt professor with intense interest, a predatory look on his face. For a moment, Zacharie imagined him shutting up that screeching Burnt somehow, and allowed a smile to flit across his face behind his mask. Benefits of wearing a mask – you can grin at your own jokes without anyone noticing. 

Heh heh heh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I intend for the Script to naturally mutate and change as I continue to write this fic. It honestly doesn't matter if you see the changes or not, but just know that whenever I post a new chapter it may be slightly different. If you care about that sort of thing.
> 
> Also, I know this is a weird-ass combination of AUs. But hopefully it will be good, right??
> 
> Disclaimer: I have only played the game in French. I have only the vaguest knowledge of how these characters all speak in English. I also aged Zacharie down a bit, apparently. Forgive me if they seem out of character. I tried my best!


	2. The Walls are Listening

After class, Zacharie made a beeline for the back door and went straight out of the building. Creepy baseball guy hadn’t disrupted the class in any way – in fact, Zacharie was willing to bet that everyone around him had seen him as a completely normal student. The professor had bitched about their attendance, their writing, and their homework for a full 15 minutes before finally getting to the lesson, but that was fairly normal. But hey, it was over now, and Zacharie could finally get back to his apartment and his cats. 

Zacharie lived in a studio apartment on the fifth floor of a high-rise in a suburb near his school. Technically he wasn’t allowed to have pets, but Pablo and Valerie were absolutely not ordinary cats. As Zacharie entered the apartment, Valerie came bounding up to him excitedly. 

“Zacharie! There were pigeons on the windowsill today, but Pablo won’t let me open the window! Will you open it for me? Please, please, Zacharie! I know I can catch one. Just let me at it!”

Behind Valerie, the Judge trotted into the room at a more sedate pace. 

“Zacharie, I’ve no doubt you are aware that allowing my artless brother to venery his quarry on the very thin windowsill of a penta-floored domicile is highly inadvisable. I hope you are not considering acquiescing to his request,” said the Judge. As Zacharie kicked off his shoes, the Judge jumped up onto the bookshelf by the door and then down onto Zacharie’s shoulders, which Zacharie had been expecting. Meanwhile, Valerie paced back and forth in front of Zacharie, lashing his tufted white tail. 

“Don’t listen to him, Zacharie. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Just because he ate part of a thesaurus one time –”

Digging his claws into Zacharie’s shoulders, the Judge hissed. 

“Pablo!” Zacharie groaned, and the cat quickly loosened his hold, though Zacharie could feel by the prickles of fur on his neck that the Judge was still bristling in indignation.

“Will you two please calm down,” said Zacharie, completely used to the brothers’ shenanigans. “Believe it or not, I have something important to tell you.”

Pausing in the middle of his pacing, Valerie looked at Zacharie inquisitively as he untied his mask and put it on the bookshelf by the door, where it always lived when he was alone in his apartment. The Judge helped by flicking it with his tail as Zacharie turned and walked into the kitchen area and leaned against the counter, Valerie following. 

“There was some kind of… creature… thing at school today,” Zacharie said, as Valerie hopped onto the counter. 

“A creature? Like a ghost?”

“If it were a fantôme of the emblematic sort, our cherished companion would no doubt have explicitly elucidated the matter,” the Judge said before Zacharie could reply, jumping from Zacharie’s shoulders to the countertop so he could look up at Zacharie’s face. Sometimes, Zacharie found it unnerving to have two sets of round, inquisitive cat eyes fixed on his bare face, even though he had lived with the two of them now for about eight years. Fortunately, the discomfort passed quickly this time as Zacharie spoke again.

“The Judge is right,” Zacharie said, running a hand absent-mindedly through his unruly black hair. “It wasn’t a ghost, or a Burnt, or anything. It was a normal guy with four eyes and four wings. And he was wearing baseball uniform. It was weird as hell. Guy looked like he came out of an angelic bargain bin.”

“Baseball? Is that the game on TV that humans play with little sticks and four mats in the dirt?” Valerie asked. 

“Ahem,” the Judge coughed. “Baseball: a game of ball between two nine-player teams played usually for nine innings on a field that has as a focal point a diamond-shaped infield with a home plate and three other bases, 27 meters apart, forming a circuit that must be completed by a base runner in order to score; the central offensive action entailing hitting of a pitched ball with a wooden or metal bat and running of the bases; the winner being the team scoring the most runs.” 

“Um,” Valerie began. 

“Yes, it’s the game with little sticks and mats in the dirt,” Zacharie interrupted before the Judge tried to “help” any further. 

He could tell by the impatient lashing of the Judge’s tail that he knew what Zacharie was doing, but the Judge only squeezed his eyes shut in irritation and said, “I should suppose that the aspect of this personage which is most salient is the disquieting amount of ocular appendages which he possesses, is it not?”

“Have _you_ ever seen a human with four eyes?” Valerie asked the Judge, who responded with a very toothy grin. 

“A human? No. Are you indicating, O brother of mine, that you have absolutely no notion as to what manner of creature our dear Zacharie encountered this very morn?”

Valerie batted half-heartedly at the Judge with one front paw, and Zacharie sighed. 

“Come on, Judge,” he said, folding his arms. “Look, if you know what that guy was… can you please just tell me?”

“I fully intend to,” the Judge said pompously, and Zacharie had to resist smiling at him. 

“It was an angel!” Valerie announced, the cogs in his little cat mind apparently having finally clicked into place.

“An angel?” Zacharie said, as the Judge shot Valerie a dirty look. 

“Un ange marionette, to be exact,” the Judge said. “A ‘puppet angel’, if you must.”

“A fake angel?” Zacharie asked. 

“No. A young angel, given your description, but a true and veritable celestial being. The ‘puppet’ aspect of his nomenclature is derived from the fact that his actions are overseen and administrated by another being who exists outside our sphere of essence; that is to say, a being who exists outside of what you refer to as ‘the universe’,” said the Judge.

“Outside the universe,” Zacharie repeated. “Because we’re in a game.”

“Yes, very good,” said the Judge. Shoving Valerie aside, he butted his head against Zacharie’s elbow, leaving Valerie scrambling to avoid falling off the counter. 

“Cheer up,” the Judge said. The subtext to this was, “Cheer up and pet me,” so Zacharie obligingly raised one hand and started scratching the Judge behind one ear. Zacharie did not know if he actually believed he was in a video game, but it was the best explanation for his perception of the world. He would never tell the Judge this, but he felt more as if he were in a linear sort of world, if that made any sense. Maybe games were more linear than he thought.

This was a scenario Zacharie had accepted. The part he didn’t like was the idea of… well, the player. Someone controlling something else. Even if the player had some kind of omnipotence, it just wasn’t right.

“So if this guy is a puppet angel,” Zacharie said slowly, now scratching the Judge under the chin, “Who’s his puppeteer? The player?”

“The Player? The Player! That means we’re part of the main plot!” said Valerie, sitting up excitedly. 

“It would be inadvisable – mrrt – to leap to conclusions,” the Judge said, chirping happily because Zacharie was still petting him. Valerie shyly eyed Zacharie’s free hand, and with a gentle smile, Zacharie reached out to pet the other white cat too. 

“If this ange fantoche is our Player’s de facto puppet, then mayhap your encounter of the morn was a scripted event,” the Judge mused. 

“A scripted event?”

“You were fated to meet, one might say.”

“And that means…?” Zacharie prompted, slightly exasperated. 

“That would indicate, as my dear brother said, that we are intended to figure into the main plot,” the Judge said. “But as to our role in said narrative, I am regrettably uncertain. Although,” he added with a touch of pride, “I have always said that your abilities are exceptional, Zacharie.”

Exceptional… the Judge would say that, seeing as Zacharie and his sister were the only people who could understand the Judge and his brother talk. Then there was the seeing ghosts and knowing who was Burnt and who was on the verge of Burning. Not to mention the ability to find celestial and infernal items like Luck Tickets and Moloch’s Meat. But that was nothing. Zacharie’s sister could actually stop people from becoming Burnt. Now there was a useful ability.

Nevertheless, Zacharie responded with, “Thanks,” and the Judge flicked his tail against Zacharie’s face. 

“He’s good at things for a _human_ ,” Valerie corrected. Zacharie and the Judge both opened their mouths to speak at the same time.

Just then, there was a knock at the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so you know, that definition of baseball that the Judge gives was ripped wholesale from dictionary.com. Bless the Judge's furry little heart.
> 
> Valerie is really fun to write. The Judge is a pain in the ass. I groan every time he opens his mouth.


	3. Second Scripted Encounter

Instantly, both cats’ ears pricked up, their heads swivelling towards the door like little satellite dishes.

“Zacharie –” the Judge started. 

“I know,” Zacharie said, heading straight for the door. Grabbing the mask from the bookshelf, he quickly but securely knotted it behind his head and opened the door. 

And froze. 

The winged man in the baseball uniform was waiting in the hallway. 

“Hello,” said Zacharie.

As had occurred earlier in the classroom, a black oppressive wave seemed to roll through the hallway. For some reason, it became very difficult to think. Whether it was the thickening of the air around him, the anxiety that whacked Zacharie in the stomach right at that moment, or something else entirely, Zacharie wasn’t sure. 

“Hello. I am the Batter. You are?” the man – the Batter – said. As he spoke, the air seemed to lighten again, and Zacharie could breathe.

“My name is Zacharie,” said Zacharie. Behind him, he could hear the distinctive noise of the Judge jumping onto the bookshelf, no doubt to get a better view. 

“You can see me,” the Batter said matter-of-factly. Was he fishing for something? He sounded so… so calm. Not emotionless, just placid, steady. His voice wasn’t overly deep but it was lower than Zacharie’s own. Now that they were face-to-face, Zacharie could see that the Batter’s face was fairly handsome, with strong features, fine, pale skin, and high cheekbones. Or perhaps they only looked high because he’d somehow managed to squeeze an extra pair of eyes onto his face.

As Zacharie had noticed earlier, the Batter’s irises were red. Ruby red. The Batter’s hair was pale blonde. Zacharie had thought being pinned by four cat eyes was disturbing, but that was nothing compared to being watched by four red, inhuman eyes in the same inhuman face. 

Swallowing, Zacharie replied, “Yes. Are you an angel?”

If the Batter was surprised that Zacharie knew this, he didn’t show it. 

“Indeed.”

“A… un ange marionette?”

“Yes.”

“In that case, may I extend my greetings to the Player?” Zacherie asked, figuring it wouldn’t hurt to be polite. 

The Batter paused. Nodded. “Her name is Vox,” he said. 

“I’m sure she is most charming,” Zacharie said. To this, the Batter did not respond. 

“Are you here for the Burnt?” Zacharie said, to fill the silence. 

“I am here in this building to see you, mask man,” the Batter said. “I was told that you have things that I need. But I am here in this world to purify ghosts. The Burnt are incidental. Others can save them. But I will purify them too.”

“Things that you need?” Zacharie said, mind working furiously. He couldn’t mean…

“Viandes. Fortune tickets. Other healing items. Do you have them?”

Zacharie thought of the box under his bed. 

“Just a minute,” he said, shutting the door in the Batter’s face. He hurried to his bedroom, Valerie hot on his heels; the Judge was still sitting on the top of the bookshelf, now leaning forward so far it looked like he might fall off, pink nose twitching. 

“You’re giving him the stuff you’ve collected?” Valerie asked as Zacharie dragged the worn black case out from under the bed. 

“No one ever said anything about _giving_ it to him,” Zacharie said, dashing back to the front door. Passing the bookcase, he hauled the Judge back onto the shelf by the scruff of the neck, then opened the door. The Batter was still there.

“Moloch’s Meat, Lucky Tickets, Silver Flesh, Jokers, and Eyes,” Zacharie said, somewhat proudly, holding out the open suitcase. Did he know what any of that was? Absolutely not. It was the quantity he was proud of, not the items themselves. Zacharie had stockpiled at least 5 of each item and learnt all their names from the Judge. Although the names of some of them indicated they could be eaten, Zacharie had never been bold enough to try them himself. But he assumed that as an angel, the Batter would be familiar with all of them and so would not need Zacharie to describe their function. 

Nodding curtly, the Batter looked over the contents of the suitcase. 

“What are your prices?” he asked. 

Uh. 

“In what currency?” Zacharie said. 

“Whatever the currency of this land is. I’m aware these items are rare. Fix the prices as you wish, merchant.”

“Um…” Zacharie said, mind working furiously. He would price the items based on their quantity, since he didn’t know what they actually did. “Eye: 20$. Moloch’s Meat: 30$. Lucky Ticket: 40$. Silver Flesh: 180$. Joker 200$.”

Without missing a beat, the Batter said, “As you will. Eight Eyes, one cut of Moloch’s Meat, two Lucky Tickets, four pieces of Silver Flesh, and one Joker.”

From the pocket of his pants, he produced what appeared to be a brown leather wallet, and Zacharie let out a small chuckle when he saw it, thinking how amusing it was that such an unearthly creature could own such a mundane thing. Perhaps he had gotten it from a Burnt – but no normal person would carry around the amount of cash necessary to pay for all the Batter had just bought from Zacharie, so at least the money wasn’t stolen, probably. The Batter took 1,190$, exact change for what he had just bought, and handed it to Zacharie, who fumbled to take the money without dropping the suitcase. After Zacharie had shoved the wad of bills into his pocket, the Batter removed the selected items from the case and somehow managed to fit all of them into his pocket. 

Zacharie was not going to question that. 

The Batter closed the case. 

“I’ll be back,” he said, and walked off down the hallway. Still holding the suitcase, Zacharie watched him go, and wondered what the hell had just happened to him. The Batter’s footsteps rang in the stairwell, and Zacharie realised that he wasn’t going down, but up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll note that I named the Player after myself. This is not relevant to the plot.


	4. Tender Sugar

“So how did he know you live in that building?” Sucre said, her voice tinny over the speakerphone. 

“Uh…” said Zacharie intelligently. That was perhaps the most obvious question to ask about this situation, but it had honestly never crossed Zacharie’s mind. The Batter knew where Zacharie lived because he was supposed to know, that was why. Maybe the Player had told him; Zacharie couldn’t guess. 

As if confirming Zacharie’s thoughts, the Judge flicked his tail at the phone and said, “The most pertinent explanation pertaining to the current situation is that we have experienced another scripted event.”

“Oh,” said Sucre. 

Zacharie, Pablo, and Valerie were all sitting around Zacharie’s phone, which was sitting on Zacharie’s desk. Zacharie was rummaging with chopsticks in a Chinese takeout box, while the Judge sat on the desk in front of him and Valerie sat on the windowsill. Owing to Zacharie’s fear of being seen without his mask on, the shades were pulled down so that only a hand-span width of sky was visible at the bottom of the window. Normally Valerie would be lying on the windowsill with his head shoved up under the shade, but today he was facing Zacharie and the Judge with his ears pricked up attentively. 

“I didn’t get to see him,” Valerie said plaintively. 

“Neither did I, brother dear,” the Judge pointed out. 

“You smelled him,” Valerie said. 

“You’ll get another chance,” Zacharie sighed. “He said he was coming back, remember?”

“He did?” Sucre said, sounding worried. Of course she would be worried about him. Zacharie’s feisty sister loved to treat him like her little brother, even though he was 3 years older than her. Ah well. Zacharie didn’t mind, but he would never admit it. 

“Yes,” Zacharie said. “Which could be a problem, because I’m going to run out of things to sell him soon.” Somewhat automatically, he popped a piece of chicken into his mouth and chewed. 

“Well, you can just find more, can’t you?” Sucre asked. “When you lived with me and Maman, you were always finding those creepy eyeball things everywhere. What were they called?”

“Yeux,” Zacharie supplied around another mouthful of noodles.

“Yeah, Eyes. It’s a good thing Maman couldn’t see them. They were nasty. You know once, I threw some of them out and you didn’t even notice.”

“What did you do that for?” Zacharie said indignantly, but an indulgent smile slipped across his face. It was hard to get a-hold of Sucre on a regular basis, seeing as she lived in a different time zone and all, but the conversations they did have were always so worth the sleep deprivation. 

“Like I said, they were nasty,” Sucre said. “I was just doing you a favour, you know.”

“Ahem,” the Judge coughed, which was cat-speak for “All ears on me, dumb humans.”

“Yes?” Sucre said patiently, but Zacharie could imagine her smiling too. She had always found the Judge very funny. In fact, she laughed at him so often as to be considered a threat to the Judge’s dignity, so he had to pretend to dislike her in order to maintain the balance. 

“We seem to have somehow found ourselves on a radical departure from our topic of origin,” the Judge said, nose pointed into the air. “The question of how to continue providing this Batter with the goods of which he has need in order to further his aims remains unresolved.”

Zacharie sat back in his chair and thought for a moment. 

“I know where to find some more stuff,” he said. The Judge, unnoticed, hooked a paw into the Chinese takeout carton and withdrew a chunk of chicken. “There’s some at the mall I work at,” Zacharie continued. “I never picked them up because it would look weird. They’re practically in plain sight. But that won’t be enough. I need more.”

“Can you make any of this stuff yourself?” Sucre said thoughtfully. The Judge bit into the piece of chicken, and Zacharie continued to pretend not to notice. 

“Yeah, I can just whip up some devil’s meat in my kitchen here,” Zacharie said. “I don’t even know what it’s supposed to do, so I can’t even fake it.”

The Judge swallowed quickly and then cut in. “If I may elucidate the matter.”

“Yes?” Sucre prompted expectantly. 

“I believe that once found, these items will self-replicate,” the Judge said. 

“What?”

“In fact, I believe that our friend Zacharie may be –”

“The Merchant!” Valerie cut in excitedly, and the Judge, for the second time that day, shot him a dirty look because Valerie had stolen his expository glory.

“Yes, Valerie, he’s the Merchant. Why don’t you attempt to clarify the term yourself, since you’re so equipped to enlighten us?” 

Valerie’s fluffy little chest swelled with pride. “The Merchant is the person in the game who sells things! Useful things! Things the Player needs. Weapons and armour and healing things.”

“None of this stuff looks like weapons to me,” Zacharie said doubtfully, shooting a glance behind him to the suitcase on the floor. “But hey. This means I can make some money, right?”

“He’s making the face, isn’t he?” Sucre said, a laugh in her voice. Zacharie’s love of making money was well-known to practically everyone around him.

“He’s making the face,” Valerie said excitedly. Zacharie rolled his eyes, knowing this was the part where the conversation would devolve. 

“Are you going to _invest_ it, Zacharie?” Sucre said.

Though he knew she was teasing him, Zacharie replied, “Yes, I am. And don’t forget who’s paying for you to go to college in France, Sucre.”

“Yeah, our mother.”

“Well who was it who told her to invest all her savings in that surgical instruments company, huh?”

“Okay, you win that one, but I still could’ve probably gotten a scholarship!”

“Whatever, little sister. Fact is, you’re there now because of me. A little gratitude would be nice.”

“You wish!” Sucre said, and Zacharie could hear her pounding her bedside table with her fist. 

The two of them exchanged a little more banter, but it was late in the evening and later still in Paris. By the time he had hung up the phone, the Judge had polished off all the chicken from the Chinese takeout box, and Zacharie had to eat the rest of the noodles without any accompaniment other than sauce. This is a pretty normal occurrence, so he didn’t particularly mind. 

What he did mind was this whole situation. Zacharie had come to terms with his strange gifts long ago, but being forced to play some kind of stereotyped role in a game controlled by someone he couldn’t even see was sort of disturbing. Although he had to admit that Merchant was the perfect job for him. As long as nobody in this game tried to tell him how to spend his hard-earnt money, he supposed he would be able to live with it. 

After Zacharie had finished eating, he did some homework, read a book, and took a walk to see if he could find anything interesting to sell to the Batter when he came back. Given what the Judge had told him, the Batter was definitely coming back, so it wouldn’t do to be understocked. As he walked through the streets, his mind wandered back to the day’s earlier encounter. He couldn’t help himself but think about the Batter again. What was it about the man that filled him with so much dread? What was that sense of oppression that appeared along with him? Could it possibly be the presence of the Player?

And how did the Batter feel about the Player? How much did they communicate with each other? Did the Batter like or dislike the Player as a person? What had the Batter’s life been like before the beginning of the game? Had he just appeared in this universe, fully formed? Had he emotions, or the capacity to care what happened to him and who was controlling him? Was he really nothing but a puppet? 

There were more questions than answers, and no way to get those answers. Maybe when he saw the Batter again… but no, why would the Batter (or the Player) want to waste their time talking to Zacharie?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sucre is studying design.


	5. Panic in Ballville

Early next morning Zacharie woke up to an unholy cacophony in the hallway. The apartment’s walls weren’t particularly thick, but the fact that Zacharie could hear what sounded like two demons roaring while somebody bashed in the neighbour’s door with a baseball bat was alarming, to say the least. 

Wait. A baseball bat…? Zacharie’s mind flashed back to yesterday’s strange visitor. But he could also hear… meowing. 

_The cats!_

Was the Batter fighting with the Judge and Valerie? That was the only thing Zacharie could think of. Jumping out of bed, he threw on a shirt that was lying on the floor, grabbed the mask that was set by the door, and threw the door open. 

The first thing Zacharie saw was the Batter, who was standing in an athletic stance directly in front of the door. His four red eyes flashed in a ferocious scowl and his hands firmly gripped the upraised bat, about to unleash a powerful swing on the opponent in front of him. The wall around him was marked with the signs of previous swings – deep, fractured holes in the plaster, shattered white pieces scattered around the hallway and crunching underfoot. 

The Batter’s opponent was a cat. Not the Judge, but The Judge, seemingly grown to five times his normal size, so big and bristling in anger he could have easily taken down a fully-grown lion. Zacharie could count every single one of his sharp, pointed, gleaming white teeth, and the sight was terrifying. It was The Judge from whom the terrible roaring must have come, though now it had subsided into a low, warning rumble in the Judge’s throat. 

Behind The Judge was the strangest sight of all. A large, canary-yellow bird was thrashing about the hallway, beating its head and wings on the walls. The body of the bird was about as big as an average Golden Retriever, but with downy wings extended it easily spanned the hallway. Plus, it had a long, elegant neck and a delicate, coiled tail, and as it writhed around Zacharie realised that its feet resembled hooves more than typical birds’ feet. This bird was the thing making the demonic hissing sounds. 

But where was Valerie? Zacharie felt his stomach lurch, wondering if the Batter had already killed him. But no; there was no blood on the bat, nor on any of the holes smashed into the walls. 

It was as The Judge swiftly dodged a blow from the Batter’s bat that Zacharie saw Valerie. Sitting astride the neck of the strange yellow bird, claws clutching into its neck so hard they were drawing blood, his little body jolting all the way down to his tail every time the bird threw its head back and beat its wings against the walls. 

_Valerie!_

Surely he hadn’t been stupid enough to try and… eat that bird?

There was no time to waste on conjecture. Someone had to get Valerie out of there before that bird killed him – or he somehow miraculously managed to kill _it_. Ducking under the Batter’s arm, pushing past The Judge’s bristling flank, Zacharie made it down the hallway and stood in front of the yellow bird. Zacharie found himself having to dodge flailing wings and sharp beak, even its whipcord tail. 

“Valerie!” Zacharie yelled, trying to get the cat’s attention. “Valerie!”

Valerie meowed something that sounded vaguely like “Sa-a-ave me-e-e!” but it was very hard to tell, given that he was still being whipped back and forth. 

“Valerie, you have to trust me. Let go of that bird. Jump into my arms. I’ll catch you!”

“I ca-a-a-an’t!” came the plaintive reply. Just then, the bird let out a fearsome shriek and tried to stab Zacharie’s stomach with its beak. Dodging under its neck, Zacharie found himself on the other side of the bird, facing the whole mess: Batter, Judge, and bird. 

“Valerie, jump!” Zacharie ordered. Valerie hesitated a moment, but it was clear that he couldn’t hold on for much longer. Zacharie knew he would be fine – but only if he jumped off. Valerie always landed on his feet. But this bird looked powerful. If Valerie didn’t let go soon, it might even kill him. 

“I said –” Zacharie began. 

Valerie interrupted him. “Ca-a-a-atch me!” he yowled, launching himself into the air. Or rather, he tried too. Instead, he was flung face-forward into space by the bird when he let go.

_Shit!_

Like a pro, Zacharie dove towards the flying cat, grabbed him around the middle, and tumbled to the floor with Valerie cradled safely in his arms. 

The hall fell into a dead silence. Zacharie could feel Valerie’s small, fuzzy little body heaving softly as he panted for breath. Slowly, Zacharie sat up and leant back against the wall, still cradling Valerie in his arms and feeling somewhat light-headed. 

Footsteps made their way down the hallway towards him, landing heavily in the unnatural stillness. The Batter. Zacharie looked up, but it was too late. The Batter was already looming over him, bat in one hand, Judge held by the scruff of the neck in the other. For a moment, Zacharie felt a bolt of panic shoot through him, but the Judge looked uninjured if a little sheepish. 

“Are these your cats?” the Batter demanded, holding up the Judge. His face was just as calm as yesterday, but Zacharie was very, very good at reading people when he had to be, and he could tell – the narrowing of the eyes, the slight flaring of the nostrils, the white knuckled grip on the handle of the bat, the slightly clipped intonation in the speech – the Batter was pissed. And Zacharie would be too, if two cats had come out of nowhere and assaulted him and his pet bird, which is what Zacharie assumed that long-limbed canary-thing was. 

“Yes, these are my cats,” Zacharie said. “The one you’re holding is Pablo, and this one here is Valerie. Pablo, say hello. Valerie, say you’re sorry.”

“Greetings, oh relentlessly vindicating sublime entity,” the Judge said. “Might I offer my pre-emptive apologies towards any unfortunate occurrences that may have passed between us this morning?”

Bless the Judge’s loquacious little heart. If anyone could talk them out of this mess, it was him. 

But the Batter only grunted in reply to the Judge’s words, then deposited him roughly on the ground next to Zacharie’s feet. He landed with a yowl of surprise and snuggled up to Zacharie’s knee protectively, at which point Valerie finally managed to sit up and look the Batter in the face. 

“Hello,” said Valerie. The Batter looked back at him impassively, but with narrowed eyes. 

“Valerie,” Zacharie began, but the Batter held up his hand. 

“Apologise to him,” he said, stepping aside. Cowering behind him was the yellow bird, which Zacharie was startled to see had tears in its eyes.

_Birds can cry?_

Valerie looked up at bird as if sizing it up for dinner. Zacharie gave him a barely perceptible shake, and he finally found his voice again. 

“Sorry!” he said, sounding not very sorry at all. The bird looked at him with doleful eyes, blood dripping down its elegant neck. 

“Do you really mean it?” the bird said, in a soft, whistling voice. Given that he lived with two talking cats, Zacharie shouldn’t really have been surprised, but he still couldn’t help but stare. 

“Uh… yes. Yes I do. I’m very sorry,” said Valerie, using the tone of voice he normally reserved for occasions where he destroyed Zacharie’s furniture. It was the sort of tone of voice that said, “I have absolutely no regrets about what I did, and I’d do it again in a second if you offered me the chance, but I’m sorry that I hurt your feelings, I guess.” Zacharie knew that was as good as it was going to get where Valerie was concerned. 

Fortunately, the bird seemed to miss the nuances in Valerie’s apology. 

“Oh… well if you didn’t mean too… you won’t do it again, right? You probably didn’t know I can talk…” the bird said, turning large, moist, hopeful eyes on Zacharie’s face. 

“Of course he won’t,” Zacharie said smoothly, thinking, _Because if he does this again, I’ll kill him myself._

“Good,” the Batter said. There was an awkward pause, and then Zacharie got to his feet, still holding Valerie in his arms. Though Valerie was leaving little bloody footprints all over his shirt, Zacharie had no intention of putting him down while the talking bird was still in the hallway. 

“If I might proffer a query,” the Judge said, moving forward until he was half-way between Zacharie and the bird. It cocked its elegant, downy yellow head to one side, and took a tentative step backwards, as if afraid the Judge would try and attack it too. 

“Y-yes?” it said. 

“Might you be, perchance, the individual intended to give succour to the Player? That is to say, is your designated role the Guide?”

The bird blinked. “Game? What game?”

The Judge looked taken aback for a moment, but then said, “Ah, my apologies. I shall endeavour to recast my question in a more commodious manner. Friend, what is your name?”

“Oh,” said the bird doubtfully. “My name is Yigol. But I was called Japhet… before.”

Upon hearing the name Japhet, the Judge chirped in surprise, but he didn’t comment on it. “Greetings, Yigol,” he said solemnly. “I am the Judge.”

“Greetings,” said Yigol. He extended his neck towards the Judge, who touched his nose to the tip of Yigol’s beak. The whole thing was almost cute, but Zacharie was only half paying attention. The other half was watching the Batter, who seemed to have completely regained his calm. As the cat and the bird touched noses, he turned towards Zacharie. 

Giving a distasteful look to Valerie, who was squirming in Zacharie’s arms, the Batter said, “Merchant. We have come to purchase items.”

What the heck had happened when Zacharie was sleeping? Had the Batter gone through eight eyes, one cut of Moloch’s Meat, two Lucky Tickets, four pieces of Silver Flesh, and one Joker in less than twenty-four hours? If so, there was no way Zacharie was going to be able to restock fast enough to supply the Batter with everything he needed. 

But that was a problem for later. Now it was time to make money. 

“Of course,” Zacharie said. Taking a protesting Valerie with him, he returned to his apartment. After depositing Valerie on his bed, he looked around the room for the suitcase. Where was it? Zacharie was sure he had left it beside his desk the night before. 

“Valerie, do you see my suitcase anywhere?” he said. Valerie flicked his tail imperiously and turned his back to Zacharie. 

“Don’t know if I have,” he said. 

“Valerie…” Zacharie said warningly. 

“It’s probably not by the door or anything,” Valerie said, so Zacharie immediately went back to the entranceway and found, to his surprise, that the suitcase was leaning up against the wall. 

No time for questions now. Zacharie went out into the hallway and presented the contents of the suitcase to the Batter. Zacharie was glad to see that the Judge and Yigol seemed to be conversing peacefully a little ways down the hallway. 

“Two Jokers,” the Batter said, handing Zacharie $400. Boy, Zacharie could get used to this. 

“You don’t need anything else?” Zacharie asked. 

“No,” the Batter said shortly, taking two Jokers out of the suitcase, Zacharie watching him like a hawk. 

“Thanks for your business,” Zacharie said, closing the suitcase and putting it down at his feet. “Anything else I can do for you?”

“Yes. I am going to need an armour and weapon upgrade.”

“Weapon upgrade as in a new bat?” Zacharie asked. As he spoke, he cast his mind around to the special objects he had seen in the mall, but none of them had looked like bats to him. Well, maybe he hadn’t looked hard enough yet. If the game required the Batter to have a new bat, surely Zacharie would be the one to find it for him. 

“Yes,” said the Batter. 

“I’ll see what I can do to get one of those in stock,” Zacharie said. The Batter nodded. 

“Yigol,” the Batter called, and the bird looked up, dipped its head to the Judge, and returned to the Batter’s side. 

“We’ll be going now.”

“Adieu,” said the Judge. 

“Bye,” said Zacharie. 

The Batter turned. Paused. Looked back. A hush rolled over the hallway, almost as if Zacharie were about to see something that shouldn’t be seen. For a moment, he expected the Batter to reprimand or even insult him. 

But instead, the Batter said simply, “Nice catch.”

“Huh?” Zacharie said. 

“Your cat. Valerie. Nice catch.”

“Th-thank you,” Zacharie said, caught off guard and unsure of how to respond to the compliment. The Batter touched the brim of his hat and turned away.

  
**morning zacharie come to save his cat from getting eaten**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like this... please comment... I'm dying here...
> 
> By the way, I renamed Japhet so that it would be clear he is no longer the guardian of a zone. Yigol is a Hebrew name (possibly misspelled, thank you internet) which means "God shall redeem". (Whereas Japhet is a Biblical name definitely intended to go along with Enoch.)
> 
> The Judge outdid himself with “Greetings, oh relentlessly vindicating sublime entity", don't you think?


	6. The Race of a Thousand Pounds

After that, Zacharie tried to go back to sleep. It didn’t work, though, because Valerie, still irritated at being hauled roughly back into the apartment, insisted on sitting on Zacharie’s face, meowing in his ear, and biting his hair. Finally, in a fit of exasperation, Zacharie sat up in one fluid motion. 

“Valerie!” he snapped. Clearly, Valerie didn’t feel an ounce of remorse, because he gave Zacharie a snooty look, flicked his tail, hopped off the bed, and left the room. Zacharie heard chuckling and realised that the Judge was sitting on his desk. 

“Greetings and salutations, o somnolent one,” the Judge said, seeing Zacharie turn dark eyes on him. 

“What is his problem?” Zacharie said crankily, running a hand through his hair and then folding his arms against the slight morning chill. 

“I suspect the inquiry which you have just posed to me was intended to be rhetorical, was it not?” the Judge smirked. “Perhaps if you had not so expeditious in your haste to return him from whence we came…”

Zacharie rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Look, how did you two get out of the apartment anyway?”

“Why, my dear Zacharie! You do not seriously suppose that a feline as ingenious as I would have no means of absconditure from such a facile confinement?” the Judge said, seemingly offended. 

“You mean, _you_ let him out?” Zacharie demanded. The Judge returned his irritated gaze with a graceless, somewhat sheepish smile. 

“The Batter was in the hallway,” he said. “I presupposed, wrongly as we are now aware, that Valerie and I could attend to him unaided, and allow you to dispense a few more moments in much-needed repose.”

Zacharie snorted. “Yeah right. You just wanted to meet him in person, you liar.”

The Judge’s face was blank, but his tail flicked back and forth in affronted dignity. Zacharie knew that if he pushed the Judge any more, he’d likely go off into the apartment to sulk like Valerie had, and Zacharie didn’t want that, because he had some questions that needed to be asked. With a sigh, Zacharie pushed back the covers and got out of bed, almost tripping over the suitcase that was sitting on the ground beside it. Had he left that there earlier? He had thought he had left it by the door. Damn thing seemed to have a mind of its own. 

The Judge noticed Zacharie’s stumble and grinned a wide, kitty grin. 

“Okay Pablo,” Zacharie said, shoving the suitcase under the bed, “I need your help.”

“Oh?” said the Judge, pretending to be disaffected, but Zacharie knew the use of his real name always softened him up a little bit. Not to mention asking for his help.

“Yeah. Tell me, who was that bird, and what was he doing in our hallway?”

“Ah,” the Judge began, as Zacharie opened his chest of drawers and pulled out a pair of black jeans and a t-shirt. “Yigol. I believe he is the Batter’s current Guide. Most Angels require a Guide in order to fulfil their imperatives, for by nature they have no knowledge of the world into which they are thrust upon nascence. Someone must instruct them as to the geography of the terrain and provide valuable insight into the resolution of puzzles.”

As the Judge spoke, Zacharie pulled on his clothes and briefly considered brushing his hair. No hairbrush in sight. From the temperature on the windowsill, Zacharie could tell that it was going to be cold out, so he opened his sweater drawer as the Judge kept talking. 

“I believe Yigol was assigned to the Batter precisely because he is as ephebic as I first suspected,” the Judge said smugly. “He was gracious enough to inform me of the impetus for the Batter’s pre-emptive return to your improvised boutique. It seems that the Burnt which formerly occupied the penultimate apartment in this edifice had mutated into a Valzong-Burnt unbeknownst to our Batter, and one of his companions was unfortunately overcome. That is why he required another Joker. They are said to revive the fallen, though I have never observed this myself.”

“Another companion?” Zacharie asked, having pulled on a knitted white sweater with a large black heart on the front while the Judge spoke. Now he sat down backwards in his chair, leaning against the chair back with his arms folded on the top. 

“Yes. A silent companion, known only as an Add-On. I am not entirely certain what this signifies. Add-Ons are said to be creatures of spirit and light, able to master certain elements of combat but with very few proclivities of their own. It is only natural that they should chose to serve an Angel.”

Zacharie nodded, wondering if he would ever see this Add-On for himself, or if they were invisible. He also wondered if the Batter would win the fight now that he had his two Jokers. No wonder he had been so angry last night. First his Add-On had gotten K.O.’d by a Valzong-Burnt, whatever that was, and then Valerie had attacked his Guide. Zacharie was lucky the Batter hadn’t decided to pitch him into the river behind the apartment complex right then and there. 

Another problem occurred to him. “Hey Judge,” Zacharie said slowly. “Remember how the Batter said he was going to need another bat? Where am I supposed to get that from? What if I don’t have it in time?”

“If I might assuage your agitation, it might please you to know that if a certain event is intended to occur in the game, it will occur regardless of your competence or lack thereof,” the Judge said. 

Ignoring the Judge’s subtle insult, Zacharie said, “So I don’t have to do anything and it will just show up.”

“Not entirely,” the Judge said, narrowing his eyes and tilting his head to one side. His tail twitched slightly. “I will endeavour to reduce this explanation to its least convoluted form. There are two means to fulfil the objectives necessitated by the game: active and passive. If you were to follow the passive route, you would not be required to exert a conscious effort in order to obtain necessary items, yet you would find yourself in situations where they were presented to you nonetheless. If you were to follow the active route, you would Travel directly to the location of the object, procure it, and Travel directly back. The active route is far more efficient, but requires a certain level of skill on the part of the Merchant.”

“You make it sound like the active route involves some kind of teleportation,” Zacharie said, already having mentally translated the explanation from Judge-speak into English. 

“Teleportation… I suppose such a word could reasonably be applied to the act of Travelling,” the Judge said. If Zacharie hadn’t already accepted that his world was part of a video game, he might have been shocked. But he had, so instead he simply thought, 

_Cool. Job perks._

“How does it work?”

“Theoretically, if one had a perfect understanding of the geographical bounds of the game, it would be possible to travel anywhere within the bounded area so long as one had some manner of objective in mind,” the Judge explained. Zacharie felt a little stupid for not realising before now that the game couldn’t possibly cover the area of the whole world. It made him feel a little uneasy to think that, like – what was beyond the borders of the game? Then he remembered that he had, in fact, grown up in France, a place where his own little sister was currently residing, so there was no need to worry about it. The question now was what area the game did cover, and Zacharie was willing to bet that it was about the size of a city. Why? Because so far he had seen the Batter in two different locations, which indicated that it wasn’t just a neighbourhood or the extent of his campus, but anything bigger than a city seemed unreasonable. Zacharie had seen ghosts in France, too, but perhaps that was some other Angel’s domain. 

“Hmm,” Zacharie said thoughtfully as he absorbed all of these thoughts. It would be nice to have proof that the city encompassed the game’s domain, because then he would know exactly where he could Travel too. But investigating that would take time, and by now he was awake enough to have some more mundane matters on his mind. 

“Thanks, Judge,” Zacharie said, quickly scratching the Judge under the chin. “I’ll think about it later. You want some breakfast?”

“I would be most appreciative,” the Judge said, “If you are able to pry the tuna can out of my brother’s persistent claws.”

It was then that Zacharie heard the clatter of metal on linoleum, and knew that Valerie must be further exacting his revenge by making a mess in the kitchen. With a sigh, he got up and left the bedroom, the Judge jumping onto his shoulders as he went. 

After removing Valerie from the kitchen area with the stern warning not to mess up the sitting area, Zacharie gathered up the toppled tower of cans that normally lived in a cupboard under the counter, then made breakfast for himself and the two cats. Even if he and Valerie were irritated with each other, Valerie still had to eat, and Zacharie wasn’t about to let him try and bite a tin can open. As if to make up for Valerie’s mood (or probably to make himself look better in comparison), the Judge was all gracious smiles and purrs. Zacharie was almost amused enough by their antics to pre-emptively forgive Valerie for being stand-offish. Almost. 

Having eaten breakfast, Zacharie did some homework, checked his stock portfolio and the status of the amusement park renovation project he had invested in, and did other, more boring adult-living-alone kinds of things. For some reason, it was much harder to concentrate than usual (except on the stock portfolio, which was always a delight). Zacharie’s life had always been on the far side of normal, but the appearance of the Batter had somehow made real life feel less real and this game nonsense seem more important. Living with two talking cats was unusual, but it had perks. Living with two talking cats while trying to learn how to teleport after a four-eyed angel with a baseball bat and a talking bird so he could sell him eyes and devil’s meat out of a ratty old suitcase was somewhat overwhelming. 

But apparently, there wasn’t anything Zacharie could do about that. Just live his life and hope the weird parts of it didn’t take over more than they already had. Sooner or later this game would have to end, and Zacharie could go back to his semi-normal life… right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter turned out to be mostly exposition, haha. Well, hopefully you all like worldbuilding, because I actually put a pretty good amount of thought into what it would be like to live inside the game like Zacharie does. Also, the passive Travel & active Travel thing will be important later. 
> 
> Oh, Zacharie. What is a normal life. Do you even have ~~human~~ friends. (Spoiler alert: he does but they are completely unimportant.)
> 
> Just so you know, projected length of this fic: I actually have 5 more chapters (with one skipped, unwritten chapter) ready to go, plus one chapter planned to write soon and then a kind of black-hole ending that will most likely require at least 2 chapters. So we're looking at a range of 15,000 - 20,000 words. Also, if anyone is wondering 'where is the Batterie', I'm afraid you have 5 chapters to go before physical contact. But don't worry, some really good shit happens in the meantime. Like near-death experiences, theft, and shopping malls.
> 
> Oh also? I know the Judge is pretty much incomprehensible sometimes. That's on purpose. When I was playing the French version of the game, I could barely understand him and I had to look up stuff he said all the time. Now, my French is not bad. I am fluent. But the Judge speaks not only with an elevated vocabulary, but in very archaic terms. I tried to make this bit comprehensible because you need to understand what's going on, evidently. But at the same time, some things can be figured out via context clues. Because that's my gameplay experience, people. Sorry about that.


	7. Magic Pipe

At around 4:00 that afternoon, still feeling somewhat frustrated, Zacharie decided to take another walk, maybe stop in at a friend’s dorm and watch some TV with them or something. The meaningless normalcy of the idea was reassuring. This Zacharie did, as well as eating dinner at a tacky little Italian restaurant with three people from Friday’s economics class. Afterwards, he finally made his way back to the apartment. 

It was as he was stepping into the elevator that Zacharie randomly wondered if the Batter had managed to defeat the Valzong-Burnt on the top floor. Strangely, the urge to find out for himself rose within him. For a moment, his hand hovered over the button for the fifth floor before he gave up and pressed the one for the 10th, and highest floor of the building. 

The elevator went up, and up, and up. The ride seemed to be a lot longer than Zacharie remembered. When he opened the door, the corridor was deserted. Zacharie almost felt stupid for coming, but if it wasn’t his imagination, there was something different about the atmosphere up here today. Usually, the air around a Burnt smelt faintly of sulphur and was thick, hot, and suffocating like a cloud of ashes. The stronger the Burnt, the more intense its aura, which meant that Zacharie should have been able to feel it from out in the hallway, as he had in the past. Either the Burnt wasn’t home… or it had been purified. 

Zacharie hadn’t intended to actually knock on the door of the Burnt’s apartment and go in, but he did go stand in front of the door for a moment. Just as he was about to walk away, the door opened, and he found himself face-to-face with an elderly woman with a rather square head. 

Slightly startled, Zacharie froze. Was this the person who had formerly been the Valzong-Burnt? Over her shoulder he could see that the room was absolutely trashed, with the tell-tale marks of a baseball bat etched into deep grooves in the walls, along with black scorch-marks which he could only presume had come from the Burnt. There was no doubt that this was the right apartment. 

The old woman peered at Zacharie through thick coke-bottle glasses. “Hello, there,” she said in a wavering voice. 

“Hello,” Zacharie said courteously. It didn’t seem like this lady was the type to turn into a Burnt, but Zacharie knew from long experience that anyone could, so it was a bad idea to just dismiss her. 

“Young man,” the old lady quavered, looking Zacharie up and down as if she was supposed to know him. “You look very familiar.”

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Zacharie said uneasily, but the old lady continued to stare at him. He had to stop himself from nervously reaching up to make sure his mask (the cat one today) was still in place.

Suddenly, the old lady’s face brightened. 

“Oh! I know who you are.”

“Uh…”

“You’re friends with that nice young man and his little yellow friend,” the old lady said. From that vague description Zacharie gathered she was talking about the Batter and Yigol. But how did she know that he knew them?

Before Zacharie had a chance to ask, a look of confusion settled over the woman’s face. “Oh… oh dear…” she muttered. “Oh, do wait here, won’t you dear? I’ll be right back.”

The old lady puttered away, leaving Zacharie standing in the doorway, wondering what was going on. Now that the woman wasn’t blocking the view, he could see the extent of the damage to the room. It seemed that any broken items had been cleared away, but undoubtedly the walls would take a while to fix. 

Zacharie could hear the woman opening drawers in another room. Uneasily, he wondered what she was looking for. When she finally reappeared he was almost convinced she was going to come back with the Batter’s dead body or something equally horrible. But no: instead, she held in her hands a glossy wood baseball bat. 

“I’m supposed to give this to you,” she said vaguely, looking somewhat distracted. Zacharie automatically held out his hands to receive it. The old lady handed him the bat, patted him on the cheek, and then closed the door in his face, leaving him standing in the hallway. 

After a moment of recovery, in which Zacharie straightened his mask and then stepped away from the door, he looked down at the bat. At first, he thought the Batter had left it in this woman’s apartment by accident. But as he studied the clean, glossy surface, it became clear that no one had ever laid hands on this bat before. In a flash, Zacharie understood. This was to be the Batter’s replacement weapon. And what he had just experienced was probably the passive route. Oops. 

But how was Zacharie supposed to know that the Batter’s previous opponent would provide his new weapon? Would that be true if he ever needed another bat in the future? And what was Zacharie supposed to do about the armour? 

Somewhat irritated, Zacharie took the elevator back down to the fifth floor. The ride this time was only an eighth as long as it had been going up. Deciding not to question that, Zacharie entered his apartment. 

And stopped. There, lying on the kitchen table where he had flung it last night, was the shirt Valerie had ruined with his little bloody paw prints. He didn’t know why, but there was something about it…

Going to the table, Zacharie picked up the shirt and examined it. Unbidden, ideas came into his mind. This shirt was marked with the blood of a holy creature. Surely it would provide some protection against magical attacks. 

Zacharie realised how crazy that line of thinking sounded and groaned internally. If his undergrad philosophy teacher had heard that, he would have pitched a fit. For a moment, the desire to say “fuck this” and just throw down the shirt and bat and pretend to forget all of this game and Merchant nonsense. 

On the other hand, however, he had made a cool 1,590$ in two days, and if he kept making that kind of bank there was no way he was going to give this up in a hurry. Since there was only one bat and one shirt here, Zacharie could probably charge 200$ for the shirt and 125$ for the bat. Another 325$ in the bag, no trouble. All he’d had to do was visit an old woman and get walked on by his own cat. Maybe this job involved a little more bullshit than Zacharie was used to, but it was also a great source of income. So he would stick with it.

Besides… if he didn’t supply the Batter with these things, who else would?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a point of curiosity, in the original game the Valzong-Burnt was the guy from the balloon game at the beginning of the amusement park. I changed some stuff up a bit, obviously.


	8. Minuit a fond la caisse

Fortunately for Zacharie’s sanity, if unfortunately for his wallet, that was the weirdest thing that happened to him all week. On Sunday morning he woke up at the kitchen table to find that he had somehow managed to re-stitch the stained shirt into something resembling a paw-printed tunic and written ‘David’ over the label in the back. Him, Zacharie, who could barely darn his own socks. Well, he wasn’t going to question something that would hopefully result in him getting 200$. Instead, he folded the tunic nicely, tucked it and the bat into the net pocket in the lid of the suitcase, and went about his business as usual. 

On Monday, a semi-strange thing happened, which was that Zacharie walked into his economics class and found that the Burnt who had been terrorising the class for several months in the guise of a professor was now a perfectly normal human woman. Clearly, the Batter had been at work here. But since this resulted in an overall reduction of weirdness in Zacharie’s life, he wasn’t going to hold that against the Batter. 

The rest of the week was completely normal. Zacharie went to school. He went to work. He did his homework. He watched TV. He ate an unholy amount of Chinese takeout. He bantered with the cats. His stock portfolio was flourishing. It was good. 

Yet always in the back of his mind was the question of when the Batter would next return. He told himself it was because he wanted his money, because he wished he could know when his life would next be unceremoniously disrupted. No matter the reason, it was an annoyance. 

Maybe it was for this reason that on Friday afternoon, instead of agreeing to go hang out with his friends, he decided to wander around the city and look for things to sell. He also had a vague idea of finding out if he could somehow feel whether different places in the city were part of the game’s map. 

Zacharie did not start his search from his apartment. Instead, he rode the bus to the furthest extent of its route, then started slowly working his way back towards the centre, wandering in a sort of unpredictable, maze-like fashion. As he had expected, it did feel different at the edge of the city, almost like there was some sort of invisible barrier that kept him from leaving. Not like a wall – it was more gradual than that. It was a feeling of claustrophobia, as if all the buildings were slowly crowding together, pushing shut the gap that normally spanned from one side of the street to the other, so that if he wanted to get through to the other side he’d have to walk down the middle of the road. And even when he had crossed half-way and was standing on the traffic island, he somehow could almost see a point in the distance where the triangle of light between the buildings was slammed closed. Then he blinked, and the effect was gone. But still, it was clear that something didn’t want him going that way. 

Not that it mattered. Zacharie had no intentions of actually leaving – not now, anyway. 

Zacharie did not find any other borders to the map during his wanderings. He did find a sort of peace, though. He enjoyed walking around the big, noisy city – he enjoyed travel in general, really. Even though he had been living here since he started grad school three and a half years ago, the city was always changing, so there was always something new to discover. So Zacharie simply wandered, letting the sounds and the smells wash over him, until he had almost forgotten his original goal. 

The sun went down and the city’s lights came on, shining gold and red and green on the inky black roads. At around 1AM Zacharie had finally made it across the city. He checked one of the roads leading away – yes, the borders here too were closed to him. Then he stopped in at a diner to eat a very belated dinner. And then he began to slowly walk back to his apartment, which was at a perpendicular point on the compass to the route he had just travelled. 

At 3AM, Zacharie reached the park in the block adjacent to the apartment complex that also backed onto the river. Zacharie almost always avoided the park, because it was absolutely full of ghosts. In fact, he had only set foot into the park once when he had first moved in. After six steps in he had already seen two ghosts, and that was more ghosts than he’d ever seen in one location together before, so he had waited long enough to see the third ghost arrive, and then immediately backed out. The Judge had later told him that the park was probably a breeding ground for ghosts. This did absolutely nothing to make Zacharie want to go back in there again. 

But tonight as he walked along the outskirts of the park (on the other side of the street), he saw, glimmering through the trees, a pale, glacial white light shimmering. And this light seemed distant, but pure. Before he knew it, Zacharie had started walking directly towards it. 

At the edge of the park he stopped, his old fears too strong to be put aside by some pretty light. But something was compelling him to go towards it, and with a sigh Zacharie realised he was probably being compelled by the game. Passive Travelling.

_That better be the Batter over there, or else…_

Squaring his shoulders, Zacharie stepped off the pavement and onto the grass of the park, heading straight towards the light. 

The park at night scared him, especially since he was completely unfamiliar with it. Fortunately, the instinct that had compelled him to enter the park in the first place seemed to know where it was going. So Zacharie walked straight towards the light, hearing nothing but the rustling of grass beneath his feet, the whistling of the light autumn breeze through the leaves on the trees, and his own quiet breathing, muffled by his mask. The air was as inky black as the sky, the streetlights bordering the paths as distant and small as twinkling yellow stars.

But whatever Zacharie was walking towards spread a pool of white light out over the ground, turning the pebbly path into a sparkling, crystalline trail, coating the leaves of the bushes in silver ice. When Zacharie reached the edge of the pool of white light, he dared not approach any closer, to come out of the dark. In fact, he was not sure that he could. But he knew that he was in the right place, because under the bush he was hidden behind was his battered brown suitcase.

And there, between the joining of two paths, the Batter was fighting a ghost. 

The white light came from a strange white ring hovering in the air behind the Batter. It was like a solid bolt of light that had been turned in on itself to form a celestial whole, a halo, but it thrummed with energy as if it were alive. When it attacked the ghost it shed small particles of itself like sparks, like tiny chips of diamond or frozen drops of dew. Silhouetted against its brilliant light was the Batter, bat poised to strike over one powerful shoulder, white wings glowing in harmony with the white ring behind them. 

Well. Zacharie could only assume that this brilliant being was the Batter’s Add-On. It was beautiful, but it reminded him too much of ghosts. The Batter himself looked as alien as he had when Zacharie had first met him, but there was something about the calm, noble poise of his face that was reassuring. 

Then there was the beast the Batter and the Add-On were fighting. It was not a normal ghost; that much was immediately obvious. Normal ghosts were about the size of a human child, thin and cotton-white, with vacant eyes. This ghost was the size of the Batter himself, had deep, black, void-like eyes, a mouth full of sharp teeth, and worse still – dozens of tiny ghosts were incubating on its back. They clung to the big ghost like buds. Zacharie had never seen a ghost like this before, but he had heard of them from the Judge – a Porter Spectre. It was hideous. 

As Zacharie watched, a small ghost broke from the Porter Spectre’s back, and the Batter instantly struck it down with his bat. When the bat made contact with the tiny ghost, it exploded into a tiny puff of smoke, then was gone. Meanwhile, the Add-On Alpha zapped the Porter Spectre with a bolt of white fire. It looked to Zacharie like the Porter Spectre was wounded – it was listing to the right instead of floating level. Two more small ghosts floated away from its back, tiny little buds with black eyes like raisins appearing on the Porter Spectre’s skin where they had been. The Batter gave a mighty swing, and the first ghost connected solidly with the bat and disappeared as the first one had. The second one was grazed by the tip of the bat and sent flying straight towards Zacharie. 

Instinctively, Zacharie threw out his hand and snatched the tiny ghost out of the air. Immediately, he regretted it. Holding a ghost was like holding a live snake made out of silly putty. As it writhed in his grasp, it forced pieces of itself through his fingers with the slimy, sticky feeling of wall paste. It also made his skin burn as if he had shoved his hand into a pot of Tiger Balm. Frantically, Zacharie looked around for some way to get rid of the ghost. 

His eye fell upon the suitcase under the bush next to him, and he quickly unlatched it with one hand. Inside, there were several empty mason jars. Zacharie clumsily unscrewed the lid of one, shoved the ghost inside, and clamped the lid down tightly before it could escape. 

“ _Nice catch_ ,” Zacharie thought to himself, hand still tingling. Maybe this ghost could somehow be used to make another tunic, since the first one had required blood.

Just as Zacharie was holding the jar up to examine it more closely, he heard a loud roar and was nearly startled into dropping the jar. He saw the Batter give one furious swing, and then the ghost he had been fighting exploded in a veritable storm of white smoke. 

As if drawn by a magnet, the Batter turned directly towards Zacharie, who gulped, shoved the glass jar with the ghost in it into the side pocket of the suitcase, and stood up. 

“Why hello, dear Batter. So nice to see you,” Zacharie said. 

“Good evening, Merchant,” the Batter replied, narrowing his eyes. The Add-On behind him seemed to have shrunk down ever-so-slightly since the battle, and was glowing less harshly. It danced around the Batter restlessly, in an almost mesmerizing way. Zacharie got the feeling that if the Add-On could almost talk. As for the Batter, it didn’t look like he had even broken a sweat fighting that last battle.

But there was no time to be distracted by speculations like that when there was money to be made. 

“Can I interest you in some of my stock? I have a new bat and a new tunic available, as well as fresh stocks of all other merchandise,” Zacharie said, making an effort to be professional even though it was 3AM and he was standing behind a bush with an old suitcase.

“Show me the bat,” said the Batter. 

“Yes. Of course. Uh, one moment.” With a little ‘hup!’ of effort, Zacharie picked the suitcase up, passed it over the hedge, and let it drop down on the other side. Then he pushed through the shrubbery himself and emerged on the same side as the Batter. After quickly brushing the leaves off of his clothes, Zacharie opened the suitcase, took out the bat, and held it up for the Batter’s inspection. 

“I present to you the Masahi bat,” Zacharie said. “+9 attack. All yours for a mere 120$.”

Were those attack statistics accurate? It seemed somehow self-evident. 

“I’ll take it,” the Batter said, so Zacharie handed him the bat. 

“And the tunic?” he asked. 

“Show me.”

Again, Zacharie held up the tunic and informed the Batter that it was the David tunic, it was +6 defence, and it cost 200$.

“It has paw-prints on it,” said the Batter, and Zacharie couldn’t believe his ears. Was that… a complaint? Was the Batter complaining? Impossible. 

Unsure of how to respond, Zacharie said, “Made with the paws of the finest cats, I assure you.” 

The Batter sighed. “I’ll take it.” Giving the tunic a doubtful look, the Batter took it from Zacharie and slung it over his shoulder. “Do you have any equipment for Alpha?” the Batter asked, indicating the Add-On floating behind him. Glancing into his suitcase, Zacharie wondered if any of the odds-and-ends he had found in the past week could be of use to an Add-On. 

“Radius Epidermis?” he said doubtfully. 

“Yes,” said the Batter. Zacharie wasn’t sure if that meant the Batter wanted to buy it or if he was agreeing with its name, but then the Batter reached into the suitcase and took it out. 

After a few more moments of inspecting the suitcase, the Batter handed Zacharie his money and passed the Radius Epidermis to Alpha, who instantly absorbed it, acquiring a bluish tinge. Then the Batter sold his old bat to Zacharie for 20$, which was fine with Zacharie because it was a perfectly good baseball bat and he could probably get some money for it on EBay. 

“Thank you for your business,” Zacharie said smugly. “And may I say that your fighting skills are very impressive. I hope my equipment serves you well.”

A strange look flashed across the Batter’s face. 

“Thank you. But I am not responsible for the outcome of battles. It is the Player who determines where and when I will strike. Only in lesser battles am I permitted to fight independently.”

“Oh,” said Zacharie. As usual, the Batter showed no emotion, so it was hard to tell if he was upset about this or not. Probably not. Zacharie wondered if the Batter enjoyed being controlled by the Player in some sick way. But he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “What about what you buy?”

“I see you are curious, Merchant,” said the Batter. “Very well. I will explain. The Player has complete physical control over me at all times. I do not chose where to go, what to buy, or how to use any item in my possession. If I lose contact with the Player, I am required to remain in one place and await her return. However, I am permitted one small freedom. Assuming the Player has chosen to initiate a conversation with someone, I may speak freely. I may also punctuate my speech with gestures as I see fit.”

That was the creepiest thing Zacharie had ever heard. The Batter really was like a puppet. Zacharie wondered if the Batter had to stay in one place when the Player was gone because he literally could not move without the Player or because he felt that much loyalty to them. But at least Zacharie knew he could trust the Batter’s words. And whatever conversational gestures he used as he saw fit.

“That’s very interesting. I’ll be sure to put that knowledge to good use,” Zacharie said suggestively, but his heart wasn’t in it. 

“Very good,” said the Batter, giving a nod. “Good evening, Merchant.”

With that, he turned and walked away.

  
**The Batter modelling Zacharie's "David Tunic".  
LET'S DO SOME SPORT! **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Constructive criticism always welcome!
> 
> Also, the times the Batter is "allowed to fight alone" means when auto-attack is on.


	9. Third Scripted Encounter

Zacharie was standing behind the main counter at the store he worked at in the mall when he felt a black wave crashing around him, accompanied by the tinkle of the bell on the shop door. The Batter had just walked in. 

The store Zacharie worked at was a purveyor of fabrics made of fake wool. Wool sweaters, coats, blankets, and oversized, fluffy sheep plushies occupied most of the store. Zacharie himself wore sweaters from the store almost every day, partly because he was required to wear them at work, and partly because they were very, very comfortable. His favourite design was a simple white turtleneck sweater with a coloured heart on the front. He had them in every colour of the rainbow, plus a couple of shades. Most of the other designs were too tacky or too pastel for Zacharie’s liking. 

And absolutely none of them looked like they would suit someone whose wardrobe seemed to consist entirely of vintage athletic wear. What would the Batter, of all people, want at a place like this? 

“Ah, Merchant. I have need of your services,” said the Batter, ever straightforward. Zacharie looked around them rapidly, but none of the other employees seemed to have noticed anything strange about the Batter. He also noticed that his brown suitcase seemed to have mysteriously appeared under the countertop in front of him and internally groaned. 

“Merchant? Who’s that? No Merchants here,” Zacharie said, forcing his lips upwards so his eyes would smile. At work, Zacharie was required to wear standard-issue hospital masks, because his normal masks weren’t professional enough, apparently. Zacharie didn’t like having half of his face exposed, but it was better than nothing. 

The Batter looked around, as Zacharie had done, and saw the other store employees in their white nametags. To Zacharie’s immense surprise, the Batter gave a tiny, amused smile. 

“There is no need to worry. They cannot see me as I am. To them, I will appear as a human.”

That was nice for the Batter to say. He didn’t know Zacharie’s manager. If it looked like Zacharie was about to make a sale, she would want to know where the money had gone. Zacharie could only make a sale to the Batter if he left the store or if he suddenly became invisible.

“The Merchant is not in,” Zacharie said, narrowing his eyes stubbornly. 

“Zacharie, what are you doing?” the Batter said, his own eyes narrowing in annoyance. Zacharie was surprised that the Batter remembered his real name, but he wasn’t so surprised that he’d suddenly break character. 

“If you want to talk to the Merchant, wait until he finishes up at his day job,” Zacharie said, folding his arms. Another quick glance around told him that the manager, who had been re-stocking the stuffed pink sheep plushies display, had seen Zacharie interacting with the Batter and was not pleased with his body language. Zacharie hastily uncrossed his arms and scowled as ferociously as he could, so his eyebrows would do the talking for him. 

“The Player does not wish to wait for the Merchant,” the Batter said, now sounding highly irritated. Zacharie glanced to the manager, who was looking fixedly at Zacharie with an expression that clearly said “what are you doing”, back to the Batter again, and sighed. 

“Excuse me for a moment,” Zacharie said stiffly. Under the Batter’s intense gaze, he reached under the counter and unlatched his suitcase. Inside the suitcase, in the same side pocket as the ghost-bud-in-a-jar he had recovered from the Porter Spectre two weeks ago, there was a full-face white mask. 

This mask was one Zacharie had made himself, and it bore the deep, empty, chiselled black eye-sockets and round, sausage-like, long-toothed mouth of a typical Horned Spectre. Indeed, Zacharie had attached papier-mâché horns to the sides of the mask, though these horns were curved downwards instead of pointed straight ahead of the face, for two reasons: straight horns were too heavy, and Zacharie didn’t want to risk impaling anyone. Unlike Zacharie’s other two favourite masks, which were smooth and white, this one looked like it had been sealed with a clear, dusty kind of gel, with the general look of frosted glass dusted with powdered sugar. It was so white it glowed, making the eyes and mouth seem even darker and blacker, drilled into the plastic base of the mask. All in all, it was an uncannily real semblance of a ghost. This was because Zacharie had coated it with the ectoplasm of the ghost bud he had caught and put in a glass jar two weeks ago at the park. 

As soon as the Batter saw the mask he stiffened, but said nothing. Zacharie put the mask on, tied it behind his head, then unhooked the hospital mask from behind his ears and pulled it out from underneath the ghost mask, effectively switching his faces. Then he glanced back at the manager again. She was now looking slightly confused. Zacharie held his breath. Then the manager looked away. It seemed the experiment had been a success. Most people could not see ghosts; ergo, most people could not see Zacharie when he was wearing a mask made of ghosts. Grinning under the mask like Valerie when he ate the Judge’s dinner, Zacharie turned back to the Batter. 

“And how can I help you today, my friend?” he said, casually plunking his suitcase on top of the counter. If any customers came in, they would just ignore Zacharie like his manager was currently doing. No problem. 

There was a muscle twitching in the Batter’s jaw. Zacharie gulped. 

“The rest of the ghost that is on your face had better be dead,” the Batter said threateningly. 

“Of course it is,” Zacharie said immediately, unlatching the suitcase. “You purified it yourself.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes,” Zacharie said slowly, trying to seem calm as he re-arranged the suitcase lining so the ghost in the jar wouldn’t be visible when the Batter looked inside. “It was the one in the park, the Porter Spectre. You batted one of its bud-things off into the bushes. I caught it and turned it into this. The rest of the ghost is dead. No problem.”

The Batter looked at Zacharie intently with eyes narrowed, as if judging him. Zacharie swallowed, knowing it would make his Adam’s apple bob up and down nervously, and hoped the Batter didn’t have a good enough awareness of social cues to figure out what that meant. 

At length, the Batter said, “I believe you, Merchant. But if you are lying to me –”

“Yes, yes, you’ll come hit me over the head with the bat I sold you or something horrible, I know,” Zacharie said dismissively, spinning the suitcase around to face the Batter. “Just buy something.”

The Batter looked taken aback at being interrupted, but then he peered inside the suitcase and inspected the contents. Meanwhile, Zacharie glanced over at the direction of the manager again, and nearly had a heart attack – she was walking straight towards them. Quickly, Zacharie hooked his hospital mask back over his ears, then pulled it up underneath the ghost mask. As the manager reached the counter, she peered at Zacharie in confusion as if she were seeing two different people. When she glanced down at his sweater, her eyes flickered with recognition, but when she looked up at his mask, they lost all focus. She just kept looking him up and down as if her brain were about to short-circuit. Zacharie quickly whipped off the ghost mask and looked at her over the top of his hospital mask. 

“Zacharie, there you are,” she said, as if she hadn’t just been staring at him for the past minute. 

“I’m assisting a customer,” Zacharie said, gesturing to the Batter. 

“Oh!” said the manager when she looked over at the Batter. He was still examining the contents of the suitcase, but there was a Choleric Symbol and a Loyal Symbol on the counter. Zacharie winced. Those two things did not in any way resemble sweaters. Or plush pink sheep.

“Excuse me, I didn’t see you there,” said the manager, to the Batter. “Are you finding everything you need?”

The Batter looked up, apparently confused as to why this human woman was directly addressing him, and in the middle of a private transaction at that. Inwardly, Zacharie rolled his eyes. This was exactly what he had been afraid of, but the _Player_ couldn’t wait to make the Batter get their collective hands on Zacharie’s merchandise. 

Before the Batter could reply, Zacharie cut in. “This is one of my customers from last week, don’t you remember? It’s mister… Joe. DiMaggio. Uh, Joe DiMaggio. He bought that limited-edition cat-paw sweater, remember?” Zacharie said, gesturing to the Batter’s tunic and hoping that it appeared to her like a faux-wool sweater. 

“Oh, Mr. DiMaggio!” said the manager in her friendliest voice. Well, the cat-print sweaters had been some of the most expensive ones in the shop. “Of course I remember you. I hope you are still satisfied with your purchase.”

“I am very satisfied with my purchase,” the Batter said seriously. “It allowed me to successfully defeat the boss Dedan with few injuries to my person.” 

The manager looked from the Batter to Zacharie with confusion writ large across her face. 

“I’m glad your cat, Dedan, likes your new sweater so much,” Zacharie said quickly, eyes urging the Batter to keep his mouth shut. This time, it was the Batter’s turn to look at Zacharie in confusion. Zacharie kept staring him down, and he shrugged. 

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” said Zacharie’s manager. Apparently deciding that this conversation was too much for her, she waved cheerily and excused herself. As soon as she was gone, Zacharie quickly swapped his masks again. 

“I’m buying these,” the Batter said, pointing to the things he had placed on the counter, as if nothing had happened. As Zacharie counted change for the Batter, the import of what the Batter had just said suddenly struck him. The Batter had fought a boss and survived. He must be very, very powerful. Then again, he normally had had help. 

“Where’s Alpha?” Zacharie asked, handing the Batter his change, then putting his own money away in his pocket. 

“Alpha is currently dematerialised. It prefers not to take corporeal form during travel,” the Batter said. Zacharie didn’t really understand that, but he assumed it meant Alpha was somehow watching them both at the moment, along with the invisible Player, and that was just creepy. 

“Right. Anything else I can do for you?” Zacharie said. 

“When will you have new armour available?” the Batter said. Now this was normal shop talk. It was a pity the manager had already walked away, Zacharie thought with some amusement. 

“I’m not sure. Depends,” Zacharie said, shutting his suitcase and leaning on the lid. 

“Depends on what?”

“Depends when you give me something to work with,” Zacharie said smugly. The Batter nodded. 

“Fair enough,” he said. “Then that will be all.”

And with that, the Batter turned and left the store. Letting out a sigh of relief, Zacharie swapped his mask back to the regular hospital mask, put the Horned Spectre mask away, and put the suitcase back under the counter. 

Just then, the manager approached him again. Zacharie tensed up, afraid she had seen him putting the money from the sale into his pocket and was about to accuse him of stealing.

But she only said, “That was a strange guy. Seems like a good customer, but still. Thanks for dealing with him, Zacharie.”

 _Stranger than you know_ , Zacharie thought. 

“Sure,” he replied. She gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder and then wandered off to tidy the wool coats. Zacharie sighed as he looked at the clock on the wall. It was going to be a long shift. 

\--

Zacharie saw the Batter several more times, always at his job and never at his apartment, much to the Judge and Valerie’s disappointment. Sometimes he was accompanied by Yigol, Alpha, and later a new Add-On, Omega. Zacharie’s manager got very used to seeing the Batter and immediately directing him to Zacharie, and she never asked Zacharie for any of the money he made by selling to the Batter, which was just fine with him. He never knew just what, exactly she saw when she saw him talking to the Batter, so he kept switching masks back and forth just in case.

A couple more weeks went by.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Joe DiMaggio. I'm funny. 
> 
> Also, the next chapter is going to be good, I promise. ;)
> 
> FYI, this fic has officially broken 20,000 words. (Tho I've only posted 15,000 of 'em.)
> 
> Comments and constructive criticism always welcome!!


	10. O Rosto De Um Assassino

Zacharie woke up in a cold sweat. 

_Find the Batter!_

That was his first thought. When he realised that he was just in his room, with the Judge and Valerie sleeping peacefully in his bed – the Judge on his stomach, Valerie on his feet – he thought he must have awoken from a nightmare. With a sigh, he let his head fall back onto the pillow and waited for the feeling of terror to pass. 

But it didn’t. The sense of urgency he felt only grew until it was coiled in his gut like a poisonous snake. 

_Dammit!_

Zacharie had no idea where the Batter was or how to go about looking for him, and there was no logical reason to do it anyway. Nevertheless, he gently picked up the Judge and moved him aside, then sat up. The Judge woke up and blinked at Zacharie in confusion. 

“Zacharie?”

“I need to find the Batter. Right now. I don’t know where he is,” Zacharie said in a hushed but frantic whisper. At the sound of his voice, Valerie stirred and looked up.

“Go back to sleep,” Valerie whined, but the Judge flicked his tail across Valerie’s face.

“When was the last occasion upon which you spoke?” the Judge said, and Zacharie was grateful to him for keeping the question as short as he could.

“Two days ago he came to the mall and picked up the new bat and tunic,” Zacharie said. 

The Judge spoke two words. “Boss arena.”

Zacharie put his head in his hands. If the Batter was in a boss arena and Zacharie was supposed to go find him, that could mean that he was in serious trouble. But where was the arena?

Zacharie’s grasp of the map had not much improved since he had tried to find the edges of it that night he had seen the Batter fight a ghost in the park. But there was one thing he had vaguely gathered – the map was divided into zones. The first one had been his apartment and the area around it. This one the Batter was clearing now included the mall, maybe only the mall. Where in the mall could there be a boss?

“Boss arena?” Valerie said, but Zacharie barely heard him. Still foggy from sleep, he could barely focus. Trying to picture a floor plan of the mall just didn’t work; it all was blurring together. But there was something – there was something – 

Zacharie picked up Valerie and redeposited him like he had with the Judge, then stood up. In the drawer of his bedside table, there was an emergency surgical mask, which he quickly hooked over his ears.

“Zacharie,” the Judge said worriedly. 

“I’m a Merchant. I’m not going to get killed by a ghost, I’m going to make money,” Zacharie said determinedly, then picked up his suitcase and stepped away into thin air. The last thing from his room he saw was Valerie leaping towards him with a yowl of panic.

For one screaming moment he was falling in a blur of colour and form. It was as if he were high above the city heading straight towards the earth, but he wasn’t free-falling, he was shooting like a bullet. But before he had a chance to hit the ground, he had already landed, completely disoriented. 

There wasn’t time to think about that. The words ‘Active Travelling’ shot across Zacharie’s mind, but the anxious pull in his gut hadn’t gone away and now it was directional. 

He was standing in a dark corridor, with flecked tile floors, white drywall-sheeted walls, and one lone wooden door at the end of it. This was definitely the mall, but definitely not a place that would appear on a normal blueprint. The door at the end of the hall was the place that was calling his name. 

No time to waste. Zacharie strode towards the door at the end of the hallway and threw it open. 

And saw a terrible scene. 

There was something bleeding in the middle of the floor, Alpha lying black and still beside it. The thing’s back was to Zacharie, but he could see it had 4 wings – black ones – and was wearing a retro-style baseball uniform. But there was no way it could be the Batter. 

For starters, its hands were long and bony, topped with sharp, bloody nails, almost like claws. Its spine was hunched and deformed, monstrous. Zacharie couldn’t see its face, and he knew that he absolutely did not want to. 

But he didn’t have a choice. As Zacharie stepped over the threshold, the door closed behind him with a dry creak. Slowly, mouth dry, lead weight in his stomach, Zacharie approached the monster bleeding on the floor. Cautiously he circled around it until he could see its terrible face. 

The bleeding monster had a long, barrel-shaped, reptilian snout that wasn’t all the way closed because the hordes of sharp teeth crammed in there didn’t all fit properly. It had a staring, bulging white eye on the side of its head, small holes for ears, and slits at the end of its nose for nostrils. It was panting raggedly, chest rising and falling rapidly, breaths harsh and gargled in its throat. 

Zacharie felt panic rise within him. This couldn’t be the Batter. It just couldn’t. But everything inside him screamed that it was. 

And it was _dying_ , which was surely why Zacharie had been called here. Dropping carefully to one knee, Zacharie opened his suitcase and pulled out a Joker, which he knew was supposed to revive from a K.O. and restore some health. This he put into the front pocket of his jeans. Then, eyeing the thing’s sharp teeth, he reached out towards the side of its head.

Before his fingers could make contact, the Batter twitched. A guttural growl came out in a huff from his throat. 

“Batter?” Zacharie said. At the sound of his voice, the Batter’s eye rolled forward until Zacharie could see the pupil, which was wild and dilated. It focused on Zacharie and the Batter blinked rapidly, but showed no signs of comprehension. Zacharie held up the Joker. 

With a snarl of effort, the Batter reached one taloned hand towards Zacharie’s outstretched one, grasping desperately at the item he held. The Batter’s claws scratched Zacharie’s hand and he pulled away in surprise. 

“I’ll give it to you. Stop, you’re hurting me,” Zacharie said. It took a few moments for the Batter to understand, but then he let his hand drop back to his side. His reptilian mouth gaped vacantly, his eyes fixed on Zacharie’s face. 

With a gulp of fear, Zacharie reached towards the Batter again. Hesitated. Used one hand to gently pull up the Batter’s top jaw, and the other to put the Joker delicately onto his tongue. As he did that, the Batter’s jaws twitched. Zacharie yanked his hand away, thinking it was about to get eaten, but the Batter held his jaws stiffly open for a full two seconds after Zacharie had taken his hand away. 

Finally, the Batter let his eye and mouth fall shut. Then, there was silence. The sound of his breathing had stopped. A hand of fear gripped Zacharie’s heart.

“Batter?” he said. The Batter’s chest was still moving, but there was still no sound. Then, his body began to glow. A sick black glow radiated from various places on the Batter’s body, where Zacharie surmised he was wounded. The darkness grew more and more intense, and a sickly sweat aroma like rotting flesh filled the air. Spots began to dance before Zacharie’s eyes. But just as he felt like he was about to be sick, the light vanished. The blood on the Batter’s clothes and the ground had dried into a sticky black paste. 

The Batter’s eye snapped open. Startled, Zacharie lurched backwards, nearly losing his balance and falling. The Batter cautiously sat up, but did not extend a hand. Zacharie could feel the Batter’s gaze boring into him, and he swallowed. For a moment they sat there staring at each other, three feet apart. 

“Batter?” Zacharie tried for a third time. The monster nodded. He pointed to Zacharie, to the inside of his mouth, then to his wounds and the blood around him. Could the Batter not speak in this form? Zacharie wouldn’t be surprised. His mouth looked better for crunching enemies in half than for speaking.

“I gave you a Joker,” Zacharie said shakily. “You owe me 200$, by the way.”

Nodding, the Batter pointed at Alpha, who was still lying in the blood, deathly still. 

“200$,” Zacharie reminded him, handing over another Joker. Nodding again, the Batter placed the Joker on top of Alpha. Again, the same sick black glow surrounded the injured Add-On, but it quickly faded, to be replaced by Alpha’s white light.

“Need anything else?” Zacharie tried to say cheerfully, watching Alpha float up to his customary place behind the Batter. Beside Alpha, the Batter looked even more hideous than he had before. Zacharie had to physically stop himself from backing up again. This place was nightmarish. 

The Batter shook his head. He pointed to Zacharie, then to the door. 

“You want me to leave.”

A nod.

That was just fine with Zacharie. Shutting his suitcase, he stood up. The Batter did not also stand. Was he still injured? Maybe he needed help. Zacharie didn’t want to leave if it meant the Batter would be killed. True, this thing he had healed barely resembled the Batter, but it had made no move to hurt him. Zacharie, of all people, knew better than to judge someone for what they kept under their mask, especially when that person – 

Had bought a substantial amount of merchandise from him, and now owed him 400$. 

“Will you be okay?” Zacharie asked. The Batter tilted his head to the side, as if he were confused by the question. 

“Can you get up?” Zacharie rephrased, and a spark flitted across the Batter’s face. Slowly but fluidly he got to his feet. That was when Zacharie understood – the Batter knew he was afraid, and was trying not to startle him. 

“Where’s your bat?” Zacharie said, and the Batter pointed to the bat lying where it had rolled at the edge of the room. Then he pointed again to the door.

“Zacharie, run away,” said the Batter. 

That voice. That voice. It was just as terrifying as the Batter’s face. It was as if the Batter were talking with broken glass and rocks in his throat, deep, powerful, broken, Legion. Zacharie wanted the Batter to live, he really did. But he could not disobey a voice like that. 

“Good luck, Batter,” Zacharie said. On the Batter’s name, his voice broke. Without a word more he walked out the door. Safe on the other side, he teleported back to his apartment, where the whole experience would feel like just another bad dream.


	11. Yesterday Was Better

The fear from the midnight encounter with the broken Batter had faded by morning, but Zacharie couldn’t forget his face. The sense of twisted power it had radiated… It was like the crest of the dark wave that always heralded the Batter’s arrival. But Zacharie couldn’t bring himself to hate the Batter. First, there was the cash that he was making. Then, there was the fact that the Batter was destroying monsters which had haunted Zacharie for a long, long time. If he had to wield the power of a monster to destroy ghosts and spectres, Zacharie couldn’t hate him for it. Besides, the Batter was what he was made to do. And in that respect Zacharie pitied him.

Two mornings after the incident, the Batter showed up at Zacharie’s door, for the first time since he had first entered Zone 2. This time Zacharie let him into the apartment, shutting the door behind him. The Judge and Valerie came up to the Batter and sniffed his ankles curiously before Zacharie shooed them into the bedroom and shut the door.

“To what do I owe this visit?” Zacharie asked the Batter, already unlatching the suitcase he had placed on the table in the living area. “I hope you won your previous fight. You look much less bloody.”

“I did,” the Batter said. “I am here to pay you for the two Jokers you gave me.”

Strangely, Zacharie had almost forgotten about that. He took the Batter’s money and gave him a few more items he asked for. 

Then the Batter said, “The Jokers you gave me appear to have broken my inventory. They are taking up a slot as shadow items and appear only when I am in combat. The Player wishes me to sell them back to you.”

“All sales are final,” Zacharie said automatically. 

“It is of no consequence,” the Batter said. “It was my duty to inform you of the Player’s intent. That was the next best course of action to carrying it out, which is impossible.”

“Oh,” said Zacharie. “So that’s all, then?”

Strangely, the Batter hesitated, something Zacharie had never seen him do before – not in non-monster form, anyway.

“Merchant,” the Batter said, looking straight into Zacharie’s face. “I thank you for coming to my aid.”

“Sure,” Zacharie said, slightly startled. Closing the lid of the suitcase and affecting a casual pose leaning against the edge of the table, he said, “So who were you fighting? And how did you turn into that alligator-thing, anyway?”

“I was fighting the boss Lamech. The form I assumed is one of many I possess. It is… the one I was born under.” The Batter’s pale eyelashes swept down as he looked away from Zacharie. 

_He’s ashamed_ , Zacharie realised. Strange. He had not known the Batter was capable of shame. And for what? He was just doing his job. 

“Can you turn into it whenever?” Zacharie asked. 

“Of course. But I would never do it in a non-combat situation,” the Batter said. “I… do not wish to become a creature of violence, but this form has few other uses.”

But wasn’t it the Batter’s job to… well, purify things? Of course he didn’t kill Burnt. And he apparently didn’t need the monster form to fight, because Zacharie had seen him kill a ghost without transforming. Had the Player forced the Batter to assume that shape, or had he assumed it naturally over the course of the fight? 

“Can you turn into it again right now?” Zacharie said. 

The Batter looked startled. Zacharie imagined the face he was making would be the one he made if ever a ghost should sneak up on him. Mostly angry, but a little afraid, too. Oh, this was getting good. 

“Why?” the Batter said. 

Hopping onto the table, Zacharie pushed the suitcase aside and sat facing the Batter, arms folded. He didn’t even know what he hoped to accomplish with this. Maybe he wanted to start getting some answers. Maybe he wanted another chance to meet this bad Batter. Maybe he wanted to understand.

“I’m curious.”

The Batter looked reluctant, but he said, “Very well.”

Taking a deep breath, the Batter held his arms out stiffly at his sides. His body didn’t move, but suddenly his hands started lengthening and becoming bonier, his wings began to turn black as if ink were spreading from his spine down to the tips of his feathers. The fabric of his tunic began to strain against the lengthening and hunching of his back. And his face – his four eyes melded into two, his hair shrank back into his scalp, and the centre of his face elongated until a snout had formed. The process was grotesque, but Zacharie held himself frozen, determined not to make any snap judgements until the transformation was complete.

When it was done, the Batter was hunched and folded in on himself, tooth-packed snout aimed at the floor. He stood like that for a moment, then slowly uncurled and looked steadily up at Zacharie, bulging eyes unblinking. Zacharie almost saw a challenge there: “ _You asked for this. Hate me if you will_.” Zacharie did not want to hate the Batter. But he was also very glad to be wearing a full-face mask, because he did not know what emotion he would be revealing without it.

In the warm light of day streaming in from the slits in the blinds and the yellow bulb overhead, the monster Batter was far less terrifying than he had been in the dark room in a pool full of blood. If Zacharie didn’t look too hard at his large, round eyes and his bony hands, he could convince himself that he was simply looking at a large, white, humanoid crocodile. With black wings and a baseball uniform. 

“It is complete,” the Batter said, and Zacharie winced. The Batter’s voice was not something that had improved with the daylight. It still sounded like the verbal equivalent of rusty barbed wire. 

“You were born like this?” Zacharie said. The Batter nodded. 

On impulse, Zacharie said, “Can I touch you?”

Before he had a chance to regret his words, the Batter cocked his head to one side. “If you must.”

There was a kind of tension between them, a fine, golden wire. Slowly, softly, as if drawn by that wire, the Batter stepped forward until he was close enough for Zacharie to touch. 

Zacharie reached towards the end of the Batter’s snout, between his small, slitted nostrils. As he put his hand down, the Batter let out a huff of breath from his nose, tickling Zacharie’s wrist. Behind the mask, Zacharie smiled. 

The monster-Batter’s skin was warm and smooth but tough, like leather. Zacharie had almost been expecting scales. Hesitantly, Zacharie ran his hand over the top of the Batter’s snout, and, feeling hard bone underneath, rapped on it with his knuckles as if it were a door. The Batter did not move. Zacharie felt the bony ridges and the soft hollow on the underside of his long jaw, the curve where the jawline met the neck, the rounded planes of the back of his head, the crinkles of skin around the large, round eyes, which regarded him steadily without blinking. 

Bolder now, Zacharie ran a finger along one exposed, gleaming fang. Smooth and hard, sharp at the tip. Zacharie put both hands on the Batter’s leathery cheeks and held them for a while, looking into the Batter’s reptilian eyes. Then he tilted his own head to the side and flicked the Batter on the tip of the nose. 

Startled, the Batter stepped back, and Zacharie laughed.

“You are not afraid,” the Batter said. 

No, Zacharie wasn’t. Not after this. “You wear a mask. Like me.”

“This is not normal for humans?” the Batter said. 

“No,” Zacharie replied, “But if you’re going to talk to me now, please turn back. Your voice is horrible.”

Wordlessly, the Batter complied. When he had regained his normal form, Zacharie was startled to see that the corners of his eyes seemed to be crinkling upwards in amusement. 

“For a Merchant, honesty is surely a virtue,” the Batter said. That was the second compliment he had ever given Zacharie, following on “Nice catch”. 

“What, like it’s not a virtue for everyone else?” Zacharie said. 

“Merchant,” the Batter said, “is your face also like mine?” As he spoke, the Batter adjusted his baseball cap, which had tilted down over his eyes after his transformation. 

Zacharie felt a sick, uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. “I – I am human. I think. But you do not want to see my face, trust me. My masks are much more beautiful than I. Perhaps I can interest you in one. They’re very cheap.”

Undeterred, the Batter said, “That is a pity. I would very much like to see what is under your mask.”

“Absolutely not,” Zacharie snapped. The Batter’s face did not drastically change, but Zacharie noted that the smile lines at the corners of his eyes were very suddenly gone. 

The sick feeling intensified. 

“Very well,” the Batter said. “I will be going now. I will see you in Zone 3, Merchant.”

 _Wait_ , Zacharie wanted to say. Wait for what? Zacharie didn’t know. But as the Batter turned and walked away, Zacharie suddenly felt that he had just made some kind of terrible mistake. He couldn’t show his face to the Batter, not ever. But maybe he had hurt the Batter’s feelings. 

But there was nothing he could do. Just as he had made up his mind to cry out and ask the Batter to come back, the door to Zacharie’s apartment was latching behind him with a quiet _click_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you give a shit about this fic, please give me some feedback ;A;


	12. Fourth Scripted Encounter

One of the major investments Zacharie had made when he first came to this city was an abandoned amusement park on the edge of town, which had been bought by an ambitious developer with the intent to re-open it. Zacharie occasionally went there with friends, had gone once with Sucre when she had visited. In fact, the developer _was_ one of his friends. At the moment, he had no particular reason to visit it, so when he woke up with the urge to go, he knew it could only mean one thing: the amusement park was Zone 3. 

There was a good reason for this. Back when the park had first re-opened, Zacharie’s developer friend had asked him to brainstorm ways to fill their coffers quickly. One of Zacharie’s more dubious schemes had been to hire a Burnt to run a nearly unwinnable balloon game. It had worked out perfectly – the Burnt made it impossible for anyone to win, and if they did win, he argued with them until they left without claiming any sort of prize. Unfortunately, the constant stress of working with a Burnt had turned some of the other park employees into Burnt, and the original Burnt himself had turned into a Valzong-Burnt after repeated arguments with customers. At last check, he had suddenly mutated from a Valzong-Burnt to a Critic Burnt. 

Zacharie felt somewhat bad about having caused all of this, but it _had_ made him a lot of money. The Burnt were a nuisance now that the park was doing well, but Burnt had a nasty tendency to self-implode if they were fired, and Zacharie didn’t want that kind of thing happening in his park. So really, the Batter’s intervention couldn’t come at a better time. 

Still, Zacharie was not particularly pleased about having to go over there. After that last meeting with the Batter… well, Zacharie didn’t regret refusing to take off his mask. He just wished that he hadn’t been so hasty to say no. The Batter was probably angry with him. But hey, it was still a chance to make money. And, now that Zacharie knew where he had to go, he could just active Travel directly to the entrance to the park. 

When Zacharie first got there, he couldn’t tell if he was supposed to wait at the park’s entrance or go inside. Telling himself that he might as well have some fun, he went in. Without paying, because that was one of the perks of basically owning half the place. It was a Saturday, so Zacharie felt perfectly comfortable blowing off everything else important in his life to walk around, eat cotton candy (no mean feat through a mask), and ride a couple of rides.

He was sitting in one of the cars on the Thunderbolt roller coaster, which was one of the first that had been put into the park, when he saw him. The Batter. In line for the same ride that Zacharie was already sitting in. Before he had a chance to bail out the side of the car, the Batter was sitting placidly beside him, holding his arms out for the attendant to come tighten the safety harness. The attendant, of course, paid absolutely no mind to the fact that the Batter could barely fit in the car because his folded wings were smushed against the seatback. 

The Batter did not speak, looking straight ahead and waiting for the ride to start. Zacharie had no idea what to say, if he was even supposed to say anything at all. “Why are you here” had an obvious answer, and “Why are you on this roller coaster” sounded too hostile. 

“Batter–” Zacharie began, but just then his words were drowned out as the roller coaster creaked loudly into motion.

Zacharie had never been in a more awkward situation in his entire life. He felt transfixed into stone . How could he let himself enjoy the ride with a guy he had argued with sitting blank-faced beside him the entire way?

To Zacharie’s complete, utter, and unending surprise, that was absolutely not what happened. As soon as the roller coaster crested the first hill, the Batter threw his hands up into the air and yelled in delight as the car plummeted towards the bottom of the track. Zacharie was so startled that he did the same. The adrenaline rush hit him, and then it was for real. Neither of them stopped screaming until just before the car had rolled to a stop at the platform at the end of the ride. The Batter gave Zacharie a nod, got out of the car, and walked away. 

Later, Zacharie found his suitcase under a bush next to the souvenir shop. Sure enough, the Batter turned up, bought a Solid Symbol and a couple of Fortune Tickets, and then handed Zacharie a photograph. It was of the two of them riding the roller coaster together. Zacharie recognised it as one of the many photos snapped by the stop-motion camera aimed at the ride, which were later sold to customers at the end of the ride. He had never even bothered to look at one before – since he always wore a mask, taking photos of himself was pointless. 

He looked happy, in the picture. Not Zacharie. The Batter. It was strange. Zacharie had never seen the Batter give himself over to any emotion before, even if it was just a play emotion. 

“Are you selling this to me?” Zacharie asked. 

“Yes,” said the Batter. Silently, Zacharie handed him 500$ and took the photograph. Then the Batter held up a photo of just himself on the same ride. Zacharie rolled his eyes and gave him a dime. 

Then there was nothing else to say, but the Batter looked at Zacharie for a moment before touching his cap and walking away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe it or not, the Batter actually does have fun like this on the roller coaster in canon. Look:  
> http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/off/images/4/43/Off_Screen_6.png/revision/latest?cb=20130416160634
> 
> Also, "Transfixed into stone". I'm clever. Heh heh. ;3
> 
> Thank you to everyone who commented on the last chapter. I do plan to finish this fic, it just might take me a while. 
> 
> If you like this fic, please give me feedback!!


	13. Soft Breeze

Zacharie had figured out how to pinpoint the Batter’s location at any given moment. After active Travelling to the amusement park at least five times, he now had a good enough mental map of the park that he could sense the Batter’s presence there, wherever he happened to be. This was useful information, because Zacharie wanted to catch the Batter. 

Ever since the first day the Batter had come to the park, their interactions had been fairly strained. At least, it seemed that way to Zacharie. He was professional, and the Batter was professional, and the whole thing was just wrong, wrong, wrong. Zacharie wanted to be able to joke with the Batter again, to act like an old friend, but he felt like he’d made some kind of barrier between them by refusing to let the Batter see his face. He hated it. And so, having sort of stalked the Batter’s movements for the past two weeks, he was now ready to approach. 

It was 2AM on a Wednesday morning. Zacharie’s sleep schedule had gone a bit to shit, but so what? He was graduating in two weeks whether his grades were good or not. Besides, now that that one professor wasn’t a Burnt anymore, she was ever so understanding. So, it was perfectly alright for Zacharie to be pacing nervously around his room instead of lying in bed, asleep.

The Batter hadn’t moved from his position for the past hour. This meant that the Player had gone off somewhere more important, and the Batter would be parked in that spot until morning. It was just like he had told Zacharie – once the Player left, the Batter didn’t budge an inch for as long as it took. Once, Zacharie had sensed him in the same place for over 24 hours. 

But all that was just a reminder of what Zacharie already knew. And a way of stalling. Giving one last, nervous huff of breath, Zacharie stepped into thin air and reappeared at the park. 

He was on the artificial island in the middle of the artificial lake. It was dark and calm. The mechanical sounds of rides and shouts of happy crowds that normally floated over the water were gone, leaving only a quiet breeze in their wake. Above him, the sky was clear, deep and dark as the blue lake around him, sprinkled with stars. 

The Batter was sitting underneath a tree, leaning up against it with his bat resting across his knees. His Add-Ons – there were 3 by this point – were hovering a short ways away where the edge of the island met the water. Their silver light reflected off the surface of the lake. 

Taking a deep breath of cool night air, Zacharie walked towards the Batter, who looked up. Zacharie was glad to know the Batter could still move when the Player was not controlling him. It was something. 

“Evening,” Zacharie said, stopping in front of the Batter. 

“Merchant, what are you doing here?” the Batter said. 

Zacharie swallowed. “I wanted to talk to you.” With no further explanation, he sat down beside the Batter, facing away from him, so that he could see the dark forms of trees in front of him and the Batter in profile out of the corner of his eye. The Batter remained gazing calmly out over the lake, silent. 

“Do you still want to know what’s under my mask?” Zacharie asked. 

“I do.”

Although Zacharie had been expecting this answer, he still froze up when he heard those words. Looking down at his hands, which were twisting together in his lap, Zacharie took a shaky breath and then began

“When I was a kid, my family lived in France. That’s – another country, across the ocean,” Zacharie said, belatedly remembering the Batter most likely didn’t even know what country he was in at the present moment.

“Celui-la?” said the Batter, and Zacharie stiffened in surprise. 

“Oui, c’est ça,” he said cautiously, folding his arms. 

“It sounds like a nice place. I have never been,” said the Batter. 

“Right,” said Zacharie, leaning back against the tree, hand curling into a fist in the grass beside him. “Well, I lived in Lyon – that’s in the east - with my parents and my sister. My Dad was… he was a Burnt. I mean, I didn’t know that. I was just a kid. His face was black and his eyes were tiny and yellow and he always scared the shit out of me, but my mother never saw anything wrong with him. He used to come home drunk and try and fight my mom, so I’d take my sister and get out of there until he passed out.” Zacharie snorted with derision at the memory of his father’s behaviour. Glanced over at the Batter, who, as usual, showed no signs of emotion. Swallowed again and looked away. To his immense surprise, he felt a gentle pressure on his hand and looked down. The Batter had placed his palm over the back of Zacharie’s hand. It was more likely he was responding to the tone of Zacharie’s voice than to the content of the story, but still. It was comforting. So Zacharie continued.

“One time he came home drunk as usual, and it was all fun and games until he caught me and my sister trying to sneak out the back door. I don’t even know what I said, but he turned into a Valzong-Burnt right there in front of me. It was like his head just – it just exploded, black ichor everywhere. Then he smashed wine bottle over my face. My mom took me to the emergency room, then went home, got our stuff, and put us on the next plane for America. My arm was still bandaged when we got on the plane. I had to have my stitches taken out the day after we arrived. Thing was, we didn’t have any money. My face – I had a bunch of scars. And we couldn’t afford – so it was – it wasn’t pretty.” Zacharie’s voice broke, and the Batter tightened his grip on Zacharie’s fingers. 

“And your arm?” the Batter said, his calm voice pulling Zacharie out of the nightmare place his mind was busy trying to wander too. 

“Oh – that. I put my arm up when he came at me, which is probably why I’m not blind. It’s fucked up too,” Zacharie added as an afterthought. Subconsciously, he gripped his sweater-clad forearm with his free hand. 

“So you are scarred,” said the Batter thoughtfully. “I understand.”

Zacharie wondered if he really did understand. The horrified looks from strangers. His mother’s eyes turning sad when she looked at his face. Picturing a Valzong-Burnt every time he looked in the mirror. Feeling somehow, horribly, responsible. 

And on top of that, being a stranger in a strange land. Zacharie had precious few memories of America that weren’t seen through the eyeholes of a mask. 

But it didn’t matter if the Batter understood or not. It just mattered if he found Zacharie disgusting. The continued gentle pressure on Zacharie’s hand said he didn’t.

“I have a question,” the Batter said. 

“Yes?” Zacharie said, looking fixedly away from him. 

“Before, you said you did not know if you were human.”

Zacharie laughed shortly. “Oh, that. I am. I asked the Judge about it once. My teeth –” he tapped the mouth of the mask “– are pointed. Only the incisors. So are Sucre’s. The Judge said we’re definitely human. We’re just strange humans.”

The Batter let out a low chuckle. At that, Zacharie immediately looked over at him and saw that the corner of his mouth was curled up. 

“You are a strange human,” was all he said. 

“And you have known lots of humans, right?” Zacharie said, rolling his eyes.

“This town is not my first assignment,” the Batter said. He lifted his hand from Zacharie’s, picked up his bat, and held it comfortably with the end planted in the dirt in front of him as he spoke. 

On impulse, Zacharie said, “Batter – where were you before here? Why did you come here? How did you end up inside this game?”

The Batter considered for a moment. Suddenly, Zacharie was afraid that the Batter would brush him off and refuse to speak. But he did not. 

“I have been in two other towns,” the Batter said. “I am told they are in your Canada. It is north of here. Before that, I was unformed. I have had three different Puppeteers, including the current Player. In the north I successfully purified both towns, although they were significantly smaller than this one. This is the first time I have been given a human puppeteer, and this is the first town I have ever been to with both multiple zones.”

“Did the other towns have Merchants?” Zacharie said curiously. 

“Yes. And Guides, like Yigol and your two cats. But unlike you, the other Merchants were not inexperienced. As such, they remained strictly professional at all times.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Zacharie said indignantly. 

“If I happened to lose a battle, they ignored my predicament and waited for the Puppeteer to rescue me,” the Batter said, shrugging. 

“And how long does that take?” Zacharie said, his mind instantly flicking back to the Batter in a pool of his own blood. 

“About 15 minutes after I lose consciousness. That is, if the Puppeteer does not abandon me and return later,” the Batter said calmly, as if he were discussing the weather. 

Even knowing the Batter would have been fine without him, Zacharie was still glad he had intervened. Thinking of him lying there for who-knows-how-long, by himself, in the dark… It made Zacharie angry. 

“Don’t you hate being controlled by someone else?” Zacharie said. There were a lot of stronger things he wanted to say, but what was certainly a start. 

“I never resented it before,” the Batter said. “When I was first formed I knew nothing of the world. If I had been tasked with purifying it by myself, I would have failed. With the guidance of a Puppeteer, I succeeded.”

“But what about now?” Zacharie said. 

The Batter hesitated. “The Player has never requested that I do something I did not wish to do,” he said, but there was a note of uncertainty in his voice. Zacharie shifted and turned towards him, but his face betrayed no emotion. If there were something, it was too dark for Zacharie to see it. Zacharie didn’t want to push the Batter, to destroy this peaceful moment, but there was something in his voice that worried him.

“Batter…” he began, and the Batter sighed. A ray of moonlight played softly over his cheekbones as he tilted his head back and leaned against the tree. 

“I have nearly finished purifying this zone. I have defeated the bosses Dedan and Lamech, and I will soon defeat the boss Enoch. But I have yet to find the true source of the ghosts in this town. If I don’t find it, I fear I will be forced to do something I… regret.” The Batter fell silent, eyes fixed on the three Add-Ons who were still bobbing and weaving over the water, now a little farther away. 

“Like what?” Zacharie said. He had no idea where the ghosts could be coming from. As far as he could tell, they were spread fairly evenly through the city, except for certain places like the park where they tended to clump together. But the Batter had already cleared out most of those places. 

“I am aware that there are two powerful beings living in this city. One is another angel. The other is a child. I am afraid that the child is the source of the ghosts. But I do not know how to purify a child. And if I purify the child, I am certain that the other angel will be forced to purify me,” the Batter said tonelessly. Zacharie outright stared at him. Was the Batter saying that he might be forced to kill a child and would then himself be killed in punishment? How could that happen? Because the Player wanted it to be that way? The Player was sick. If she had been standing in front of Zacharie right at that moment, he would have asked her what the hell was wrong with her. Even if she didn’t understand what was going on, who could hurt a child? 

A vision of a Valzong-Burnt and a bottle of red wine flitted through Zacharie’s mind. 

_Disgusting_.

“You can’t kill a child,” Zacharie said flatly. 

“I can, if I am made to do so,” the Batter said, thunking the tip of the bat against the grass at his feet. 

_Not if you can’t find him_ , Zacharie thought. 

“Let’s assume that doesn’t happen. What will you do after you finish purifying the city?” 

“I… don’t know. I assume I will be assigned to another city. To another Puppeteer,” the Batter said. To Zacharie’s surprise, he almost sounded sad. 

“You don’t want to go.”

The Batter didn’t reply, angling his head away from Zacharie, so Zacharie watched the breeze playing through his short-cropped hair. 

“It is not the city I will miss,” the Batter said finally. 

Zacharie would not miss this city either if its dust were on its heels and his diploma were in his hands. He and the Batter had now known each other for about two months, and that shouldn’t have been enough for him to feel like saying “I’ll go with you”. But he did, if only because the Batter was a walking source of income. 

Who was Zacharie kidding. That didn’t matter to him anymore. It hadn’t mattered in weeks. The Batter was his friend, the only one who really knew him apart from Valerie and Pablo. He hadn’t known the Batter for all that long, but he trusted him. Cared about him. Wanted some kind of better future for him than being forced to kill a child by some faceless being in the sky. As all these realisations came to him, Zacharie suddenly stood up and smacked the flat of his closed fist against the tree beside him.

“This isn’t right,” Zacharie said, voice rough.

The Batter looked up at Zacharie, surprised. “Zacharie –”

“Where do I find this other angel?” 

“The Room.”

“Where is that?” Zacharie growled. 

“The Factory District.”

“And where in the Factory District –”

“I don’t know,” the Batter said, cutting Zacharie off. “Zacharie. There is no need to be so upset. The city will be purified. It will be as it is meant to be.”

“This is _not_ how it’s meant to be, and you know it,” Zacharie said.

“It is the will of the Player,” said the Batter. 

“Yeah? Well the Player can go fuck herself,” Zacharie retorted. As the words left his mouth he sensed that he had just made a terrible mistake. He looked down at the Batter, but his face was in shadow beneath his baseball cap, and it was impossible to tell his expression. But his hands were tense as they gripped the shaft of the bat. 

There was a long, cold pause. 

“You should go,” said the Batter. Zacharie’s stomach swooped. 

_What have I done?_

“Batter, I’m sorry –”

“You should go.”

Zacharie could have sworn he saw the Batter’s eyes shining red. Was it his imagination, or was his skin getting paler, his teeth growing longer, his hands growing into talons…

Swallowing, Zacharie took a step back. 

“It won’t end like this,” he said in a low voice. And then he Travelled away into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment!! ;w;


	14. Some Rudiements of Propriety

“Zacharie, it’s 9AM. I’m about to go to class. What’s wrong? Can it wait until this afternoon?” Sucre said anxiously. 

“It’s 3AM here,” Zacharie said grouchily, pinching the bridge of his nose to try and forestall the headache he felt building behind his eyes. 

“Pablo told him to wait,” Valerie, who was sitting in his normal spot on the windowsill, informed Sucre. The Judge gave a little sniff of confirmation and stuck his nose in the air. 

“Sucre, I’m sorry,” Zacharie said, ignoring the Judge’s disdain. “You know the Batter?”

“That angel guy who can kill ghosts? Yeah? What about him?” Sucre said, and Zacharie mentally blessed her for being patient. He could just picture her rummaging through her drawers for her most fashionable knee socks, phone cradled against her shoulder. She would pull her shoes on with one hand, hopping up and down a bit as she did so, sling her messenger bag over one shoulder, and run out the door with something hanging from her mouth – papers, pens, pencils. Once, toast. It reminded Zacharie of when they had been in high school together. But that was a long time ago now. 

“Sucre I…” Zacharie started, wondering how the hell to explain this whole mess to Sucre succinctly. 

“Zacharie enjoys the company of our subservient celestial acquaintance a little too much for his own good,” the Judge said snidely. 

“Wait, what?” Sucre laughed. “Is the Judge saying you have a crush on the Batter, Zacharie?”

“Who knows what the hell the Judge is saying,” Zacharie snapped, and the Judge narrowed his eyes angrily, the tip of his tail twitching. “Look, the Batter is my friend, and he’s in trouble. And I don’t know what to do. Okay?”

“The Batter’s in trouble? Like, life-or-death kind of trouble?” Sucre said. 

“Yeah,” Zacharie said, feeling the prickle of tears behind his eyes. Ugh, what the hell was wrong with him? He barely even knew the Batter. 

But the Batter was the first person who he had been close to in years. And that was something he had to fight for. 

“Okay, I’ll cut class,” Sucre said. There was a rush of static over the line, accompanied by a thud, presumably her dumping her school bag on the ground and sitting back down on her chair or bed. And Zacharie had never been so grateful to his little sister before in his entire life. 

“I’m helping too!” Valerie piped up. Zacharie picked him up, earning a little yowl of surprise, and buried his face in Valerie’s fur. 

“Put me down,” Valerie protested weakly, but Zacharie only altered his grip so that it would be more comfortable for both of them and held Valerie tightly to his chest. The Judge said nothing, his tail continuing to twitch in a rhythmic, menacing way. After all of this was over, Zacharie would have some apologising to do. It was surprising that the Judge hadn’t left, but that was probably because he was curious about what was going on, not because he was concerned about Zacharie.

“So what’s the issue?” Sucre asked, her voice brisk and business-like. Zacharie heard the flip of pages together, and knew she was pulling out her sketchbook. She only did that for really serious business. 

“The issue is that the Player may force him to kill someone, so another angel will be forced to kill him in revenge,” Zacharie said, summing up the issue as succinctly as he could. 

“It’s bad,” Valerie put in, then rubbed his cheek against Zacharie’s chest comfortingly. Absent-mindedly, Zacharie started to pet him. 

“Another angel? You mean there’s already one in the city?” Sucre asked. 

“Yeah,” Zacharie said. “But the Batter doesn’t know where to find them. Just said they’re in the Factory District in the Room, whatever that means.”

“And you can’t Active Travel there?” Sucre said. 

“No. I can only Active Travel to places I know… or to where the Batter is,” Zacharie admitted.

“Dang,” Sucre said. “I was going to suggest you go talk to the other angel. Guess you can’t do that though, huh.” Zacharie heard the scratch of her pencil as she wrote something down. At the same time, Valerie started purring. The gentle rumble of Valerie’s furry chest pressed against Zacharie’s own made him feel much calmer, just as it always had. Zacharie had told the Batter that it wouldn’t end like this, and he intended to prove it. 

“What about this kid? Can you find him?”

“The Batter gave me even less information about the child than about the angel,” Zacharie said. “Just said he’s the one who’s making the ghosts.”

There was more scribbling from Sucre’s end of the phone line. 

“Okay, so here’s what I think,” Sucre said. “You can’t get the Batter to change what he’s going to do because the Player is controlling him, and you can’t get the Player to change what they’re going to do because you can’t communicate with her. Right?”

“Uh-huh,” Zacharie said. 

“So what you have to do is stop this kid from making ghosts by yourself,” Sucre continued. 

“Except we can’t find him,” Zacharie put in. 

“Right. So that’s what we have to do. Find the kid.”

The sound of purring filled the room as Zacharie thought about what Sucre had said. 

“Hey, Valerie. Pablo,” Zacharie gulped as the Judge shot him an irritated look. “Neither of you guys know anything about this, do you?”

The Judge looked away with his nose in the air, and Valerie started making biscuits on Zacharie’s chest, fortunately without his claws. 

“We don’t know anything,” Valerie said sadly. “We knew another game, but not this one. We’re not Guides anymore.”

Zacharie sighed. Then he started up, scaring Valerie, who dug his claws in. 

“Ouch!” Zacharie said. “Sorry, Valerie. Here, sit on my lap.” He put Valerie down, a feeling of excitement suddenly swelling in his chest. Valerie resettled himself in Zacharie’s lap, his purrs spluttering back to life like the motor of a very stubborn lawn mower. “You know who is a Guide? Yigol,” Zacharie said, answering his own question. 

“Japhet?” said Valerie. 

“Yeah, him. I bet he knows how to find the other angel _and_ the kid,” Zacharie said. 

“Okay, but how do we find _him_?” Sucre asked. The Judge let out a little sniff of derision. Zacharie and Valerie exchanged glances. 

“He’ll be wherever the first puzzle is… right?” Valerie said, sounding unsure, and the Judge sniffed again. Whether that was a confirmation, a disagreement, or simply an insult, Zacharie had no idea. 

“Is that where you would’ve waited if you were the Guide?” Zacharie asked Valerie. 

“I think so…” Valerie said, looking up at Zacharie with big round eyes. Valerie didn’t like it when his brother got moody.

Feeling slightly bad for both Valerie and himself, Zacharie said, “Fine. Then let’s go there.”

“And how are you going to find _that_?” Sucre asked. Zacharie sighed. 

“Well, I know where the borders of the zone are. I can feel them, I mean,” Zacharie said, momentarily realising how weird that statement was and trying to ignore it. “So I guess… go to the beginning and try and figure out the route the Batter’s going to take?”

“How does an area have a beginning?” Sucre said, sounding confused. 

“Oh, I know that one!” Valerie said. “The beginning is always in the south, and it’s close to the trains!”

“The trains, huh?” Sucre said. “Better hope your subway pass hasn’t expired.”

“It hasn’t,” Zacharie assured her. “And thanks, Valerie.” Valerie head-butted Zacharie’s hand as if to say, ‘You’re welcome!’

“Ok, problem solved?” Sucre asked. 

“Wait…” Zacharie said. The thought of having a plan was reassuring. The fact that there were so many unknowns in the plan was not. That, and the Judge and the Batter were both mad at him. The Judge might be prickly sometimes, and overly loquacious when he wasn’t, but he was Zacharie’s friend, and the thought of not having him on his side to solve this… it hurt. 

As for the Batter… Zacharie honestly didn’t know how to make that one right. How could the Batter support the Player, knowing that she might force him to do something as terrible as hurting a child? Zacharie knew first-hand what it would feel like to be the child in that situation. The Batter could never make him feel like that. It was unthinkable. The Batter wasn’t that kind of person. Balling up his fists, Zacharie pressed them to his eyes, the headache continuing to pound at his temples. 

“Zacharie?” Sucre said, and he put his face in his hands. 

“The Batter is mad at me,” he admitted. 

“Why?”

“I told him the Player could go to hell,” Zacharie said, taking a deep breath. 

Sucre laughed. 

“It’s not funny!” Zacharie snapped at the phone. 

“Zacharie, he’ll get over it,” Sucre said gently. 

“How can you be so sure?” Zacharie said, feeling desperate. 

“Because you’re going to save him from a bad ending. That’ll benefit the Player too, right? He can’t hate you if you help him. Isn’t that why you became friends in the first place?”

Sucre’s logic was… well, it was comforting. It sounded so solid, so good. Like a dream that Zacharie could reach for, that would keep him going until the morning.

“Thanks, Sucre,” Zacharie said quietly. “Now, we’re good.” Well, there was still the Judge. But Sucre couldn’t help with that, much as Zacharie wished she could. Glancing over at the Judge, Zacharie saw that he was disdainfully licking one of his front paws. So, still no support from there.

“Great,” Sucre said, spinning Zacharie back to reality. God, he was so tired. “In that case I’m going to finish cutting class, and you’re going to bed.”

Pausing in the middle of cleaning the other paw, the Judge said, “Ah, you wish to conform to your dear elder brother’s obscenely rudimentary standards, is that it?”

“Zacharie has never cut class in his life,” Sucre said sternly. “We both know that, Pablo. Give my brother a break, okay? He’s just sad. He didn’t mean it. Be a good kitty now. Bye Zachy! Bye Valerie!”

While the Judge choked on his indignation at being called a “good kitty”, Zacharie and Valerie said good-bye to Sucre and she hung up. 

Zacharie slowly turned his chair to face the Judge. He felt as if his whole body were made of lead, his heart especially. 

The Judge and Zacharie’s eyes met. The Judge’s were cold. Zacharie’s were weirdly bare, with no mask to hide the dark smudges underneath of them, the lines of sadness as they crinkled at the corners. In that moment, Zacharie looked a lot older than he ever had before – except for one time. One time that had ended in a thousand shards of glass.

“Pablo, I’m sorry,” Zacharie said in a small voice. “Please forgive me. You know I can’t do this without you.”

The Judge stood slowly, stretching first one back leg, then the other. Sauntering towards Zacharie, he let his tail wave gracefully from side-to-side, padding softly from the windowsill to the desk as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Zacharie felt Valerie dig his claws into his lap ever-so-slightly, his purring growing louder and taking on an almost threatening tone which filled the whole room. 

The Judge came to a stop in front of Zacharie, then sat down, raising up his front legs so that his eyes and Zacharie’s were level, their noses almost touching. Leaning forward ever-so-slightly, the Judge pressed his damp little pink nose to the tip of Zacharie’s nose, his whiskers twitching. Then he sat back on his back legs again and said, “Young one, I care not for your comportment. I care not for your Batter, and I care not for this inauspicious dance with destiny that you are heretofore and henceforth choosing to lead. But I have always cared for you.”

Zacharie sniffed and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. 

“I love you too, Pablo,” he said. Valerie’s purring grew even louder. 

“You too, Valerie,” Zacharie sniffed. The Judge flicked Zacharie’s cheek affectionately with his tail, then hopped off the desk and stalked over to the bed expectantly. Zacharie decided to not even bother with undressing. Picking up Valerie, he crawled into bed and fell asleep to the sound of two loudly purring cats.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments always welcome!
> 
> UPDATE: This fic is on hiatus. I fully intend to finish it, but I'm in France right now so I don't really have the time. Sorry about the wait!


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